Season 2, Ep. 3 – The Teaching Interpreter: Student Motivation

Watch in ASL

Hi! Welcome to season 2 of the Amanda’s Musings podcast – this season is entitled “the Teaching Interpreter” where we will explore the various ways in which interpreters are taught, mentored, coached, and influenced in their growth and development as an interpreter.

I’m Amanda Smith an interpreter, educator, coach, and creative. I love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting, the complexities of human interaction, and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference.

You can find the show notes at arsmithstudios.com and click the “podcast” button in the upper right navigation bar.

I want you to think about the following reflective prompts as you listen/watch:

1. What, if anything, is sparking your care for the profession, those you influence in the profession, and yourself as a leader?
2. Do you feel moved to take any action? If so, what? When?
3. What questions arise?
4. What insights & connections do you see to yourself?

In today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about motivation, and specifically the question that was mentioned in the last episode around how to handle the motivation of students learning to become interpreters when they lack the motivation to do things to get better. And also when they have all of the motivation, but they’re stuck and unable to get better or unable to improve their skills.

So let’s talk about motivation a little bit. Motivation is not something that is. Static. Um, it is something that ebbs and flows, and I’ll use this podcast as an example. I have known that I wanted to talk about this. I’ve had percolations about it, and my motivation has been ebbing this week in ways that, um, I have not recorded until today.

So, uh, motivation is not always the thing that. Is the defining factor in whether I will pursue skill development and whether I will be successful in skill development or not. So Audrey Louden Beck, uh, did her thesis on values and kind of motivations for entering the field, and I will put the reference to her thesis in, um, the show notes.

There are certainly other places to get the concept of values in our profession. Um, and also just for people in general. Uh, our behavior is often, um hmm. Shaped by our values. Um, I was gonna say motivated by our values, but that’s gonna be confusing when we’re talking about motivation. So shaped by our values, um, or we at least would hope it would be.

And then there are professional values that have been articulated by a number of authors. I’ll include the reference for Dean and Pollard’s work on the professional values that we can glean from the code of professional conduct. Um. And not just the one for our id, but a couple of other codes as well, um, that pertain to interpreting in general.

So I think, again, the theme that you’re gonna see is I’m gonna. Always come at these questions from a place of defining what it is that we’re talking about before ever talking about solutions. And yes, I have mentioned values as a potential route for a solution or a way to address motivation, but I wanna ask a couple of questions, both of the maybe mentor or teacher and also of about the student themselves.

So I think in thinking about. The mentor or teacher in this scenario of working with a student, student, a kind of feeling apathetic or seeming apathetic, lacking motivation to improve their practice, and student B who, uh, is really motivated, really passionate. Doing all of the things and is struggling to make improvements.

What I would ask of that mentor teacher is what is their motivation to be in the role that they’re in? And this is similar to the conversation we had in the last episode about our mindset, but I would ask, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to create interpreters in your image? Are you trying to walk alongside, um, an interpreter in development and kind of nudge them in a direction?

Um. What is your motivation for being there and what did it, what do you believe about interpreting, which is again, a question that came up last time. What do you believe about interpreting? Do you believe that anyone can be an interpreter? Do you believe only certain people can become interpreters? Do you believe certain skill sets are required or certain personalities?

Um, another reference I’ll put in the show notes is, um, work by, um. I know for sure Bon tempo, but I’m, I can’t remember if Napier, I think Napier is in the, the one I’m thinking of as well, but around personality traits to be an interpreter. Like what, what, what are, um, indicators that you might be a successful interpreter.

So I think you have to be clear about what you think and what, what motivates you and what you believe your role and function is in working with the students that you’re working with. And then you can start getting curious and creative toward them. So let’s talk about student A, who has been described as apathetic and lacking motivation to.

Engage in improving their skills. They may actually be fine in terms of what the, the, the product that they are creating, um, for the level that they are. But they don’t show much motivation to, um, put any effort into improving their practice. Um, so they will stagnate at some point, even if they’re quote unquote fine right now.

And I think there are a lot of questions we can ask this student, um, and ask ourselves about this student. So this is where I’m gonna bring back values. What are the values that they most align with in terms of their reason for being here? There are lots of reasons that people choose to pursue interpreting as a career path or an educational path, and they’re not all created equal and they, all of those paths don’t end up in the same place in terms of the quality of interpreter that is there.

And I would also say that one path doesn’t result. In one kind of interpreter. Um, there’s, there are multiple paths to becoming an interpreter. Multiple reasons you would become an interpreter, multiple reasons you would stay being an interpreter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right? So I would wanna tap into what their, uh, kind of core values are and where those align with the professional values and.

Exploring where they are experiencing either misalignment that affects their motivation. Maybe this isn’t a fit for them any longer. Maybe they have reached the point where they realize, oh, this is not the thing I thought interpreting was, and I don’t know that I really wanna do it, but I’ve already spent so much time and energy into this and money, um, that, you know, the, the idea of the sunk cost fallacy, right?

Like, I’ve already put so much into this that I just have to see it through, right? It could also be that they are aligned, this is what they want to do. But the barriers they’re experiencing are in other areas of life. They’re having a hard time, um, paying their rent. They’re, they got fired from their job.

Their mom has been diagnosed with something. They’re living out of their car. They have food insecurity. Any number of things that would take energy. And potentially look like a lack of motivation when really it might literally be they don’t have the energy or the capacity to put into these things, right?

So any number of those things would require a different response. If they are in a situation where they are very, they’re doing the very best that they can, but it’s not enough, that is a different scenario than recognizing. I don’t think that this is a match. I think you are misaligned in your values in some way, and thus the result is a lack of action, a lack of care, a lack of, um,

commitment to discipline maybe, um, to do the things that need to be done if. Okay, so I’m, I think I’m gonna do questions first. That I’m gonna ask of both student A and B and then go into, um. No, I think I’m gonna go into conversations right now that you could have with them. Um, just to keep them separate.

’cause I think they are separate things, right? So if the student is, um, ill-equipped and at capacity and they don’t have the energy to give, but their values are aligned, this does seem to be the trajectory. This does seem to be where they’re headed in life and it is something that they want to do, um, and they care about it.

Then I would have conversations with them about what resources they have available to them and any resources I have that I could offer to them. And I don’t mean me personally, but the institution where I work or the community that we’re engaging in or any of those kinds of things to try to, um, address and alleviate some of those external needs, um, or those external kind of barriers that are there.

If they are in a misalignment, I would wanna spend some time talking about that misalignment, talking to them about what that feels like, how that shows up, um, how that manifests when they’re supposed to be doing their homework or when they’re doing, um, an internship or while they’re in class or any of those kinds of things.

And get them to have some insight, um, and reflection into where it is they want to take. Like, once we’ve identified a mismatch of values, then what do they want to do? Um, do they wanna align with the values in a way that, um, do they. Like reassess their own values to come into alignment with the professional values.

Do, do they wanna recognize that and move in another direction?

 what kinds of things they could or should be looking for out of the, out of the assignment. Um. There’s, there are a number of reasons and you can just think about things that you have resisted in your life and all of those same reasons that you resist things are the reasons they would resist things, right?

But I would say the most common one that I see among um, interpreters is perfectionism. And that can come out in two ways. One of the ways is, um, probably more than two ways, but one of the ways is what I said before of like, I can’t do it perfectly, so I’m just gonna avoid doing it at all. Like, I don’t wanna know that I have any issues.

And the other is I’m already great and fine, and so I’ll do it, I guess, but it’s just gonna be perfect. And they, they lack kind of the, the insight or self-awareness to. Remain curious about their practice for improvement, right? Um, so that’s student a’s thoughts. Let’s, uh, or starts of thoughts, and I’m curious what you all would say and, you know, kind of what I’ve, I’ve missed stuff obviously in talking about this.

So now student B is the student who is doing everything, wants to do all of the things, wants all of the extra homework, all of the practice that they can get. They do things all the time. They volunteer for everything they do, all of the things and their skills are stagnant, um, and or not improving at the rate you.

Need them to improve or want them to improve. And what I would say to that is, or the questions I guess I would ask of that particular scenario is, um, I would wanna know a lot more about what their practice actually looks like and how they are engaging with the product of their practice. What is their level of self-awareness?

Around cognitive processing skills, language production, um, and interpersonal kinds of aspects. I would say students who I have encountered who would fall into this student B category are sometimes students who it’s just gonna take them a little bit longer for it to click. Um. And some of these students.

It may not click right? So there’s a, there’s a cognitive, cognitive processing issue, and o oftentimes it shows up when we start speeding things up to simultaneous. Sometimes you’ll see glimpses of it while we’re doing translation work and consecutive work, but it will show up even more pronounced when you start to work, go into simultaneous work because there’s something about the rapid, um.

Rapid switching of attention in your brain. That needs to happen instantaneously in the meaning making and the co-creating process that is a step too far in what they’re able to do. So they might have fine language skills, they might have fine processing skills, they might have fine, you know, co-creating meaning or co-constructing meaning skills, but doing it at that speed is a problem.

Now if they have demonstrated struggles in other aspects like meaning making, um, or co-constructing of meaning, that’s something, you know, you would kind of deal with a little bit earlier. And I think again, those, um, are different pathways and different kind of issues to address. So just because someone is passionate about something.

Does not necessarily mean that they’re equipped to do it. Um, and the, the, the quote that’s kind of in my head right now, because I really think that it’s a kind of. There, there’s a diagnostic process in here of like, figuring out where the issue lies. Um, so there’s a quote from that. I, I mean, Carol Patri didn’t make this up, but I heard it in a Carol Patri, uh, workshop of there’s frequently, um, uh, uh, a saying of practice makes perfect, but actually practice makes permanent and.

That practice makes permanent, is the, the element, right? So if you’re practicing in ways that are, is just reinforcing the, the, the ways in which it isn’t working for you right now, you’re just gonna continue to reinforce that. So I would need to really unpack with this student. How are you practicing? How are you getting real feedback?

And I don’t mean feedback about like, your work looked good in this way or that way. I mean, like the natural kind of back channeling feedback about whether or not it makes sense, um, like not even yet to talking about accuracy. Just does it make sense what you’re saying and then we can get into, is it. Is it what they were saying?

Right? Is it accurate? But does it even make sense what you’re saying? So if they’re practicing in isolation or practicing to their wall, or practicing to their mom who doesn’t know sign language, they’re great and they feel great because there’s no, um, there’s no back channeling to let them know that anything needs to be adjusted.

So I might then, then pair them with a conversational partner in, um, in both languages, quite frankly. Um, I might pair them with, um. Yeah, I think I would do a conversational partner in that particular situation because they need to start getting an understanding and modifying their language for a consumer.

And oftentimes, when I say consumer, I mean a consumer of interpreting work, but I just mean they need to have their language bounce off someone else. And, and modify for comprehension to occur, right? If I’ve only ever learned a SL in the classroom and not used it naturally with anyone, I’ve never really modified my language so that someone else understands it.

Now you could get them to tap into what they do in their native language, because hopefully in their native language they have had this experience. We all do this. We all adjust our language and modify our language and come at things from different angles and say them again. If we see that someone doesn’t understand what we’re saying or we get a response back, that doesn’t fit what I said, right?

We’re constantly co-constructing meaning in that way, but if they have just been constructing meaning all on their own, it’s probably real weak. Um, they need to be, they need to be in experiences where they’re co-constructing language. Now, if it’s a speed issue, you can. Take things back to consecutive and simultaneous and then back up into, I mean, sorry, consecutive and translation and then back up into, uh, simultaneous.

So you can slow things down. One of my, um, favorite sayings is that you can’t cheat. There’s no cheating in interpreting. Um, it’s just using your resources. So if, if someone is, has demonstrated that they can co-construct meaning in translation, they can co-construct meaning in consecutive interpreting.

But simultaneous is not happening for them. I will often have the same materials, so the same stimulus materials, and they will work with them from a discourse analysis perspective, to translation to consecutive and then into simultaneous with the exact same stimulus material. Because there is no cheating and interpreting, you can either do it.

Or you can’t, there’s no cheating. It’s all just using our resources. Um, so because what I want is for them to experience what it feels like to be in flow, to be in their groove, I need their body to experience that sense of, oh, I know what’s happening. I know what’s going on. I know how to kind of process this information.

I need them to have that experience in their body so that we can say. That’s what we’re after, right? If they’ve never experienced that sense of flow or that sense of being in the groove, they’re not, they don’t know what they’re striving for, right? So once they’ve had that experience, then we can play with, okay, did it feel like this or did it feel like that?

Did it feel like you were in the flow? In flow or not in flow? And if you were not in flow, okay, let’s talk about where that. Where that happened in the cognitive processing place? Or was it just a speed issue? Or, or, or, right. There’s, there’s lots of things to do with that. And then I would also, I think kind of, um, harken back to the conversation that I mentioned for student A, around values and alignment.

Um, so my guess is that student B’S values align. Really well with professional values of interpreting because they care really deeply and they’re very passionate about it. And then I would have a conversation about where their skills line up and what kind of work they maybe could and or couldn’t do, and help to build their own self-awareness, help to build their own monitoring system around.

Okay, here’s my capacity, here’s what I can do. And I’m not gonna go beyond that because then it would be a violation of my values, both my personal values and my professional values.

That was a lot of rambling about student A and student B and motivation. I’m gonna include the links that I mentioned, um, in the show notes. I’m hoping what you take away from this episode is. It’s much more complicated than are they or aren’t they motivated and do they or don’t they care? There are lots of places that we can interject our, um, our own care and our own values as teachers and mentors or coaches to then help them see what they need to see to make the next decision on their own pathway and.

Really important to remember that we cannot do that for them. I cannot care more than you. I can be with you and I can ask you questions and I can help you to see the things that you need to see or hopefully see the things that you need to see. But I cannot care more than you about your own practice. I care deeply about my practice and I care deeply about the profession and the communities that I serve.

And at some point those values my value of the community I serve. Um, and my own practice is going to come into play where if I’m the teacher or the mentor, I do serve as a gatekeeper, and I do serve as someone who says. I see that your skill level is here and I need your skill level to be, you know, three paces ahead in order to do this next thing that you’re gonna do.

Let’s get creative about how we can do that. And if they are uninterested in pursuing that, then that is the end of the road. For now. For now. Not forever, for now, if they are interested in doing that, but encountering struggle after, struggle after struggle. Okay, then I’m with you. And then let’s have a conversation about how, how much longer you’re willing to struggle in this arena before finding another outlet.

Um, one of the things that I often challenge all of, all of the students that I’ve worked with, but particularly students who are in bucket B, student B bucket, I want you to spend some time dreaming about what else you would do if you weren’t an interpreter. The reality is. This generation will likely have multiple careers in their life.

So the idea that you would start in your twenties as an interpreter and retire as an interpreter at 65 is not necessarily the future of the field. Um, it also, we do also have a high. Attrition rate. Um, we do people have injuries, uh, whether that’s from the work itself or external injuries that affect their ability to continue doing the work.

So oftentimes students in, in bucket B. Are reluctant to even consider other jobs or other outlets for their passions and their interests because it feels like a failure. It feels like admitting defeat. So the invitation isn’t, you’re not gonna be an interpreter, so you sure should think about other things.

The invitation is interpreting is a really specific thing, and there are multiple things that could get in the way of being able to do that. Not to mention the fact that the community may decide that they don’t wanna work with you. I wouldn’t necessarily say it that way, but Right. Like there, there are lots of factors that are not all just up to me as the practitioner about whether I get to work or not.

Given that, think about the skill sets that you have, the passions that you have, the values that you have, where else might those be of service? Where else might those be of interest? Where else might those be used and leveraged in support of the communities that you’re interested in, in pursuit of the things that you enjoy doing?

It is not going to hurt you. It is not gonna hurt your chances as of an being an interpreter to explore and dream a little bit about what else could be true, what else could be something I could do. And you might connect them with people who have left the field or didn’t ever enter the field, um, to find out what they’re doing.

To do just some informational interviews, maybe inter in informational interviews with deaf consumers to find out. What are some different people that work in your life and what kinds of things do they do? Because sometimes, probably more than sometimes people believe that if they learn a SL, that means they’ll become an interpreter.

Like that’s the only trajectory once you know a SL. And there’s really a lot of things you can do with a SL in support of the community that isn’t interpreting. Interpreting is a really specific, um, skillset and career path. I am curious your thoughts.

Conclusion

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.