August 11
While English is not your first language, you took ESL classes and studied, and felt comfortable enough to enroll in college. But you are a bit frustrated that you are not understanding some of the nuances of English and some of the concepts in your program of study. You feel a bit intimidated by your professor and don't ask many questions.
Now imagine a peer patiently explaining the nuances and concepts, often in your first language. You're comfortable with this peer and ask them questions you hesitated to ask the teacher. Slowly, you start to understand and your frustration evaporates.
Full Story:
The difference between translation and interpretation is important. It's the difference between literal and figurative, or between a joke hitting its mark or causing offense. Interpretation brings personality, understanding, and humanity to communication. All things crucial in an educational setting.At North Shore Community College (NSCC), they are taking this idea a step further with peer interpreters for non-native speakers. Allowing not just for the nuance of language to be addressed, but for the differences between instructor and student. Peer interpreters play a vital role in the classroom helping to bridge communication gaps and reduce room for error to level the playing field across languages.
Peer Interpreters (or Global Voices Ambassadors) are multilingual NSCC students who have successfully completed Interpreting Training and support language access initiatives on campus. This year's class of peer interpreters come from several different majors and demonstrate a wide range of former experiences in interpreting, both formal and informal. By providing live on-site interpreting for campus events, Peer Interpreters contribute to advancing NSCC's mission of providing equitable student outcomes.
The Peer Interpreter program was created at NSCC to serve multiple purposes: primarily to support the growing multicultural and multilingual community at NSCC by improving communication and enhancing our intercultural competence, and also to provide additional opportunities to recognize and formally cultivate our students' multilingualism. This provides additional opportunities for students to earn credits, get professional experience, work flexible hours during the semester, and develop a network of interpreting professionals working in and around the North Shore. This program is essential because students, their families, and the greater community are able to benefit from its positive outcomes, especially through the enrichment of their college and career experiences.
Since the program's inception in February of 2025, the Peer Interpreters have been recruited, onboarded, trained, and deployed at nearly 20 campus events spanningCommencement, admissions, student support, and other high needs areas. Students have participated in both guided and independent experiential learning opportunities in interpretation and translation.
In order to become a Peer Interpreter, a student must be enrolled as a credit student at NSCC with at least 1 semester of coursework remaining. The student must also demonstrate language proficiency in English and one other language. Based on NSCC's current student demographics, Haitian Creole and Spanish-speaking students are especially needed for peer interpreting.
After the application process, students take part in a 10-week, 30-hour hybrid interpreter training course. The course covers ethics, cultural competence, professionalism, and often forgotten topics such as interpreter self-care. This training comes at no cost to the interpreters and students earn 6 college credits after successful program completion.Once training is completed, students receive ongoing support.
So far, feedback on the program has been positive: Peer Interpreters have been recognized and commended for their professionalism, eagerness to support, ability to jump in and make connections, flexibility around changes, and language abilities.
For more information on NSCC's Peer Interpreter program, contact Kenechukwu (keh-NEH-choo-kwoo) Abajue Umeh at 781-477-2137 | kabajueu@northshore.edu.