Course

Foundations of Practice I

Faculty
Applied Community Studies
Department
Sign Language Interpretation
Course code
INTR 2142
Credits
3.00
Semester length
15 Weeks
Max class size
18
Method(s) of instruction
Lecture
Seminar
Field Experience
Typically offered
To be determined

Overview

Course description
This course provides students with an introduction to the profession of American Sign Language - English interpretation and will involve three significant areas: observation of interpreters at work in the field; development of pre-interpreting foundational skills; and an introduction to the decision-making framework known as the Demand Control Schema.
Course content

Course content will be guided by research, empirical knowledge, professional standards and best practice.

Professional interpreters’ work

  • Techniques for effective observation 
  • Skills for interpersonal interacting & questioning
  • Reflective journals

Foundational skills for interpreting

  • Listening for comprehension 
  • Speaking for clarity 
  • Identifying main points in spoken texts
  • Discourse mapping 
  • Multi-tasking while listening and speaking

Ethical decision-making 

  • Ethical codes
  • Demand Control Schema

 

Learning activities
  • Lecture/seminar
  • Small group work
  • Guest speakers
  • Course readings/video
Means of assessment

Assessment will be in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. Evaluation will be based on a combination of individual and group work, and at the instructor’s discretion may include presentations, written assignments, papers, quizzes and/or exams. 

A typical distribution of graded assignments follows:

  • Field Research Individual Project, Presentation: 25%
  • Field Research Group Project, Presentation: 25%
  • Field Research Group Project, Reflection: 10%
  • Professional Reflection Journals: 30%
  • Professional Accountability: 10%

This is a letter graded course.

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:  

  • Analyze the work of interpreters, based on observation in the field
  • Recognize their own personal filters and frame of reference  
  • Apply techniques learned through observations to one’s own emerging professional practice
  • Apply the Demand Control Schema to decision-making as it pertains to the field of interpreting
  • Demonstrate pre-interpreting skills including closure techniques, discourse prediction skills, memory and multi-tasking
  • Analyze and diagram samples of discourse to determine the main points and supporting detail
  • Reconstruct English texts working from a diagram of one’s own design
Textbook materials

A list of required and optional textbooks and materials is provided for students at the beginning of each semester.

Requisites

Prerequisites

No prerequisite courses.

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer details for INTR 2142
Athabasca University (AU) AU LANG 2XX (3)
Coast Mountain College (CMTN) No credit
College of New Caledonia (CNC) CNC CASS 188 (3) or CNC CASS 189 (3)
College of the Rockies (COTR) No credit
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) KPU LANC 1XXX (3)
Simon Fraser University (SFU) No credit
University Canada West (UCW) UCW ARTS 2XX (3)
University of Victoria (UVIC) No credit

Course Offerings

Winter 2025