Learning to interpret and mediate in the 1·1·2 emergency phone line through roleplay

Abstract

Current times compel teachers to constantly improve and renew their teaching practice in the search of active methodologies that meet the high training needs of their students. This paper aims to provide a pragmatic example of how language courses in the Bachelor's Degree in Translation and Interpreting are put at the service of the interpreting activity from an experimental standpoint so that future Translators and Interpreters are able to use tools that guarantee citizens' access to information, to Public Services and, therefore, to the protection of their fundamental rights and freedoms in an equitable manner.

In this study, which takes place at the International University of Valencia (VIU), we bring to the Language B English course a didactic proposal based on a simulation game as a method of collaborative and transformative learning. The trainees, following the Emergency Response Protocols and the techniques of Telephonic Dialogue Interpreting and Mediation, will have to solve and recreate a call addressed to the European public emergency telephone “1·1·2”. As professional Interpreters and Mediators, they will be the link between the citizen and the Emergency Services of the Public Administration saving, with the power of the word, life itself.