Educational interpreting refers to spoken language interpreting in K-12 education settings. Post-secondary, early education and a variety of other school settings employ interpreters however for the sake of this brief overview, we will focus on the K-12 education setting. Additionally, sign language interpreters also regularly interpret throughout all educational systems but for the purposes of this overview, we will focus only on spoken language interpreters. We will note, however, that sign language interpreting is significantly more developed than spoken-language interpreters throughout the educational system. Schools employ interpreters to improve language access for non-English and limited-English speaking families and students. Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires language access for federally-funded school settings similarly as it does for healthcare and legal settings. Educational interpreting falls under the umbrella of community interpreting. The International Standards Organization (ISO) defines community interpreting as “bidirectional interpreting that takes place in communicative settings…among speakers of different languages for the purpose of accessing community services.” While there is no formal definition of educational interpreting, we define it as the following: Educational interpreting is a specialization of community interpreting that facilities access to educational services in schools and other educational settings. Some common requests include: Parent Teacher Conferences Disciplinary Meetings Special...
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