A mock conference brought together students from London Met's Conference Interpreting and International Business programmes to apply their skills in a practical environment.
Date: 12 May 2022
Students on London Met's Conference Interpreting MA and International Business Management BSc programmes worked together at a recent event to organise and deliver the latest mock conference held at the Holloway Road campus.
The mock conference was dedicated to the European Works Council (EWC). They invented the fictitious car manufacturing company, Darota, to create a story for the meeting.
For the first time, two cohorts of students from different courses worked collaboratively on a simulated conference. The International Business Management BSc students celebrated their linguistic diversity and used their languages to play the roles assigned in this simulated event. They presented the new vision of Darota - its finances, budgets, and an HR report. Whilst they presented the development of Darota, the Conference Interpreting MA students interpreted in different languages including French, English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese and Russian.
The second part of the Mock Conference was the EWC internal employee consultation meeting chaired by Danielle D'Hayer, who acted as the employee representative. The students represented the company employee delegations from different countries. This was the perfect exercise for the MA Conference Interpreting students who had to interpret simultaneously, switching from one language to the next quite fast.
Danielle D'Hayer, course leader of MA Conference Interpreting at London Met, explained: "The event was the perfect opportunity for the students to apply the negotiation they had skills learnt in class. We chose a simulated EWC framework as this is a popular assignment our students get to interpret when they graduate."
Elisa Palmioli, 24, MA Conference Interpreting student said: "This mock conference was very helpful for my future. We had a few during the year, but this one was more realistic. It was definitely more complex than the one we did in the past but more useful for practice.
"I tried to get as much information as possible before today. I highlighted some parts that I thought were key and practised as much as possible. I'm tired but super happy with how it went.”
Danielle D'Hayer hopes to promote more inter-departmental events for students at London Met and bring other talents to similar mock conferences.
The event was streamed on their YouTube Channel with friends and family who were more than welcome to participate in the event, and is still available to watch online..
