Communicating in international meetings

Katrien Nijs, July 2024

What we learn about multilingual work This document was created during and after several multilingual events. These are examples of ambitious but realistic practices in the complexity of multilingual situations. Let us not underestimate the
complexity and the effort required, but let us not be discouraged by overestimating the difficulties. Such a situation will never be perfect, but this is part of the international experience. We see this experience as a cooperative learning process: speaking and listening requires effort from everyone. 

 

Maggie Bland.

Our objectives:
to make visible, inform, democratize, organize, empower. We invite each participant to come out of our workshops with a better knowledge of languages: if you will, each bilingual activity is at the same time a language course.
To make the exchange possible
- Ask yourself how the activity will be announced, who will be the audience and what objectives are targeted in each stage of the activity: hands on activity (can be without translation); moments of reflection and exchange (everything said by each participant is translated into the two languages chosen)
- Be clear in descriptions that help participants make their choices, based on possibilities and goals. For example, "we will speak in German and French and we will translate all the interventions into these two languages" or "we will speak in Spanish and there will be time to translate from Spanish to other languages if there are translators present for your language"; or "all languages will have the same status in this workshop..."
- Those in charge make sure to take the time to take stock of the real needs, taking into account people for whom the languages spoken are not their family languages. It is easy to overestimate their understanding. It is important for the facilitator to ask himself this question: "Even if you express yourself well, do you understand us as well? Even if you understand, do you express yourself as you want?"
- Explain the linguistic situation so that each participant understands the democratic issues and can contribute.
- We do not need all languages for every activity; As soon as a situation is no longer monolingual, it facilitates several forms of cooperative translation (time, visibility, awareness, etc.).
- In some cases, it is possible to have documents of the content translated in advance (but in our meetings, we exceptionally use lectures. The treasures of our encounters are rather built in the meeting and during the exchange... Translating some concepts beforehand may be helpful.

Responsibilities for those who understand all the languages used in the activity.

1. Before you speak: announce that you will speak in both languages so that the translators can rest.

2. When listening, be very quiet during speaking time and translation time, as translators are very focused. You can also support and help translators. Listeners, speakers, and translators will appreciate it.

Responsibilities for those who do not understand all the languages used in the activity

1. Before you start talking, check if your translator is "with you"; and try not to talk for too long. During your speaking time, check to see if your translator wants you to pause, slow down, or repeat something.
 
2. Before you listen to the translation, also listen to the original language and  during the translation try to understand if each topic has been translated correctly. Help your translator by being very attentive. Translators and speakers will appreciate your help.

Additional Tips

- Always translate the question before someone starts answering. In a dialogue: translate before the other person speaks.
- Be careful when the topic of the conversation changes. Announce this clearly in both languages.
(People who try to follow along in their language of learning are operating with assumptions and need the safeguards so as not to be lost.)

- Thinking about organization in space. Is a projector available? Who will sit where? Group by language? Being able to look at your neighbor's notes can help ( = a form of subtitling: reading while you listen helps comprehension). It is preferable for translators to have eye contact with each other and with people who are less familiar with the language used.