In order to cultivate Chinese-Portuguese bilingual professionals and strengthen the cooperation between the European Union and the Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI), the International Portuguese Training Centre for Conference Interpreting of MPI cooperated with the Directorate General for Interpretation of the European Commission (DG-SCIC) in co-organizing a "Consecutive Interpretation Intensive Training Course" from 25 August to 4 September 2020. Experienced trainers from the DG-SCIC, together with teachers of MPI, taught consecutive interpreting knowledge and skills to interpreting major students of the Master of Chinese-Portuguese Translation and Interpreting programme, and also provided practical learning opportunities to students online.
This training course focused on practical interpreting training, allowing students to make improvements by understanding the difficulties encountered in actual live interpretation. In each round of the Chinese-to-Portuguese and Portuguese-to-Chinese interpreting exercises, the instructors provided feedback on the students' performance, reinforcing their positive aspects, and provided constructive suggestions on their shortcomings, providing a valuable and beneficial training opportunity for all participants.
The DG-SCIC stated that this jointly organized training course greatly improved the quality of interpretation teaching between the two parties and promoted the common goal of providing high-quality education to students. MPI will continue to strengthen the cooperation with DG-SCIC through the International Portuguese Training Centre for Conference Interpreting, to promote the cultivation of Portuguese-speaking talents, and raise the quality of the related human resources.
The International Portuguese Training Centre for Conference Interpreting officially opened on 5 December 2019. It aims to cultivate outstanding Portuguese teachers for Macao, Chinese Mainland and Asia, and improve the level of interpretation education, which will in turn help Macao to continue to play the role of the Platform for Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries and actively build a "Chinese-Portuguese bilingual talent training base".
