Practitioner Spotlight: Peter Bonser
Born in Sydney, I am the eldest child of deaf parents who used Auslan (Australian Sign Language). I had normal hearing and lived with my parents together with hearing relatives in an extended family situation for the first 10 years of my life. Growing up in this environment meant that I acquired fluency in both…
Practitioner Spotlight: Thad Patradoon
When I was a university student in Thailand, my lecturer at the Architectural School always used Australian cities as our case study. Being a new country with one of the most advanced planning systems in the modern world, I was intrigued by the idea of seeing the ‘real’ Australia. My dream came true when my…
Practitioner Spotlight: Juliana Frantz
My passion for travelling and curiosity for other cultures started very early in life. From the ages of 10 to 14, I was part of a dance group that performed in different towns in the southern region of Brazil almost every weekend. We travelled without our parents and were hosted by local families who opened…
Practitioner Spotlight: Jennifer Plaistowe
My first love in life was not languages – it was music. Being surrounded by different languages and cultures was as normal to me as breathing in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, and I did not make the effort to learn Shona, Zulu, or Xhosa. It was not until I moved to Australia at the age of 15 that I…
Practitioner Spotlight: Yahya Kilic
I arrived in Australia in 1968 as a 3 year old with my family who had left Turkey in pursuit of a better life. While my parents worked in factories as non-skilled laborers with zero English, my siblings and I did our best to bring home impressive report cards to please them. From about the…
Practitioner Spotlight: Camille Lapierre
Camille Lapierre is a NAATI Certified Conference Interpreter in French, AUSIT NSW Branch Chair and a tutor for interpreting courses at University of New South Wales (UNSW). Becoming an interpreter was something I dreamt of since the age of 12. I was born and raised in the western part of France and had the opportunity…