NAATI has a strategic interest in the study and advancement of the training and testing of intercultural competency (IC) amongst future interpreters and translators. Since 2018 NAATI has been conducting stand-alone training and testing for intercultural competency.
In 2023 members of Monash University’s Intercultural Lab approached NAATI with a proposal to undertake a research project delving into the experiences of participants who have undertaken this training and to investigate how intercultural competency is developed and acquired by trainee translators and interpreters in programs across the world and also how it is tested.
The research was based on an overview of research studies on course curricula, interviews with a select group of individuals who have undertaken NAATI’s intercultural competency training course and end of course survey findings.
The project is now complete, and the research findings point to trainees reporting that the training enabled them to both acquire an understanding of intercultural competency and to successfully complete a test. We hope that this project will pave the way for new questions and avenues to explore further.
Snapshot of findings:
- The NAATI IC course is the only stand-alone IC training for future translators and interpreters worldwide
- A high satisfaction with the course and an increased ability by course participants to analyse not only ‘other’ cultures but also one’s own
- High (87.4%) pass rate and general satisfaction that training equipped candidates for IC test
- Greater ease responding to scenarios containing miscommunication than responding to comparative identification of intercultural features
- Increased interest in IC and awareness of its application in T&I and beyond
Future questions for further research include:
- How T&I trainees and practitioners acquire IC. Should it be taught implicitly alongside the acquisition of other skills, or explicitly as a separate, identifiable skill?
- How T&I trainers and practitioners can contribute to broader IC training that often overlooks language and linguistic differences?
- What lessons can T&I trainers learn from NAATI’s stand-alone course and test?
- How does being bilingual and familiar with two cultures enable T&I professionals to have unique and advanced IC skills that go beyond those of IC-trained monolinguals?
- How can IC be a strength that T&I professionals can use to stand out in the language services market”?
You can find the Monash press release here.
The intercultural competency course is now free PD offered on NAATI Learn. If you already hold NAATI certification and complete this course as a professional development activity for recertification, you can claim 20 points under category 1.5.
