This course develops advanced skills in consecutive interpreting from French into Greek through longer speeches, more complex content, and increasingly demanding communication settings. Students interpret dense, fast-paced speech from different French-speaking regions, focusing on rhetoric, implied meaning, and shifts in register. Practice includes institutional speeches, sensitive exchanges in public service settings, and remote interpreting. Students also refine their personal note-taking systems and learn to build terminology resources using contemporary tools. They assess the reliability and practical value of these resources during interpreting assignments and revise them in response to the needs and difficulties they encounter in the course of practice.

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Understand and analyze complex, information-dense spoken French with developed argumentation from different French-speaking regions, including France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Francophone Africa. Identify the purpose of a speech, rhetorical techniques, implicit meanings and allusions, irony, qualifications, and commitments made by the speaker.
• Retain and interpret structured speech lasting up to three minutes without notes, preserving the main ideas, the connections between them, and essential details.
• Use a consistent, efficient personal note-taking system to interpret segments lasting up to 10–12 minutes, including speech delivered rapidly or containing substantial information. Record structure, lists of points and ideas, numbers, proper names, negation, and nuances of meaning concisely.
• Convey the message in accurate, coherent, natural Greek while preserving the speaker’s stance, register, and rhetorical purpose, whether the speech is institutional, technical, confrontational, or emotionally charged. Avoid unjustified additions and omissions and provide a full interpretation rather than a summary.
• Work effectively under demanding conditions, including speeches read from a script, rapid delivery, unfamiliar accents, less-than-ideal audio, question-and-answer exchanges, and confrontational discussions. Adapt their practice to remote and hybrid communication.
• Interpret sensitive exchanges in public service settings, particularly those involving vulnerable individuals, such as asylum interviews, medical encounters, and hearings. Interpret each participant’s statements fully in the first person, make requests for clarification explicit to everyone involved, and maintain impartiality, confidentiality, and professional role boundaries.
• Develop structured terminology resources for specific interpreting assignments using corpora, terminology extraction and management tools, and AI assistance where permitted. Verify terms and their equivalents against official terminology databases and authoritative institutional sources.
• Use terminology resources during interpreting assignments through quick, targeted searches and consistent terminology choices. Record gaps and errors and update the resources after each assignment.
• Prepare and deliver well-researched speeches in French and Greek before an audience for classmates to use as interpreting practice material.
• Identify difficulties in comprehension, information retention, note-taking, terminology, and expression in Greek. Document progress with specific examples from recordings and adjust their individual practice plans.
• Evaluate and use approved digital preparation and practice tools critically, check the reliability of their outputs, and follow the course policy on artificial intelligence.

Week 1 — Political Discourse, Rhetoric, and Public Debate

Skills and activities: An initial assessment reviews the skills developed in Consecutive Interpreting I: French into Greek. Students examine the organization of political speeches and the use of repetition, enumeration, contrast, rhetorical questions, and rhetorical buildup. Practice focuses on conveying these features in natural Greek while preserving their purpose and force. Students also review their personal note-taking systems. Consecutive interpreting practice includes segments lasting 3–5 minutes with notes and up to 2 minutes without notes.

Building on Course I: Identifying communicative intent develops into understanding and conveying rhetorical choices. Introductory note-taking techniques are refined into a consistent personal system.

Week 2 — The Rule of Law, Fundamental Rights, and European Justice

Skills and activities: Students interpret institutional and legal discourse containing long sentences, multiple subordinate clauses, and complex noun phrases. They practice restructuring sentences to produce clear, accurate Greek. Related concepts that are often confused, such as regulations, directives, decisions, and recommendations, are clarified.

Systematic work on terminology resources begins with the selection of a management tool, the organization of entries, and the recording of definitions, contexts, sources, dates, verification status, and usage notes. Consecutive interpreting practice involves five-minute segments.

Building on Course I: Basic glossaries develop into structured terminology resources with supporting documentation. Practice progresses from simpler institutional discourse to legal speeches with more demanding syntax.

Week 3 — The French-Speaking World, Linguistic Diversity, and Multilingualism

Skills and activities: Students become familiar with varieties and accents of French from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and Francophone Africa. Particular attention is paid to vocabulary differences, local names for institutions, and regional number forms such as septante and nonante. Students practice using context, anticipating how a speech will develop, and reformulating meaning when an unfamiliar accent makes comprehension more difficult. Activities include consecutive interpreting of 5–6-minute segments and memory-based interpreting of speech lasting up to 2.5 minutes without notes.

Building on Course I: Familiarity with French as spoken in France and Canada expands to a wider range of varieties and accents. Practice without notes extends to 2.5 minutes.

Week 4 — Macroeconomics, Fiscal Policy, and Financial Markets

Skills and activities: Students interpret speeches containing extensive numerical information, including sequences of figures, percentages, percentage points, economic indicators, comparisons, trends, and forecasts. Emphasis is placed on distinguishing facts from estimates and possible scenarios. Students establish consistent abbreviations and symbols for recording economic data efficiently.

They also compile a small corpus of parallel institutional texts and identify candidate terms using corpus analysis tools such as Sketch Engine or AntConc. Consecutive interpreting practice involves six-minute segments.

Building on Course I: Interpreting individual figures develops into handling sequences of numerical data and accurately conveying trends and scenarios. Corpus analysis tools are introduced for terminology extraction.

Week 5 — The Climate Crisis, International Negotiations, and the Energy Transition

Skills and activities: Students interpret scientific speeches and contributions to negotiations, paying attention to conditions, qualifications, and degrees of certainty. They examine distinctions between commitments, targets, and intentions and practice conveying them accurately.

Practice includes speeches read from a script, delivered at a faster pace and with fewer natural pauses. Students learn to express the content more concisely in Greek without losing information. AI may assist with the initial identification of terms, but every suggestion must be checked against IATE and institutional sources, and rejected suggestions must be recorded. Consecutive interpreting practice involves 6–7-minute segments.

Building on Course I: Students begin interpreting speeches read from scripts and producing more concise renditions without sacrificing content. AI-assisted terminology extraction is introduced, subject to documentation and verification requirements.

Week 6 — Bioethics, Medical Research, and Public Health

Skills and activities: Students interpret specialized scientific speeches for nonspecialist audiences, using terminology accurately and preserving the limitations of the findings. Activities address ethical dilemmas and conflicting views. Practice focuses on faithfully conveying arguments even when the interpreter disagrees with them.

Students submit their first terminology resource assignment and test its usefulness while interpreting seven-minute segments.

Building on Course I: Interpreting scientific information now includes conveying conflicting ethical arguments. Students test their terminology resources during classroom interpreting practice for the first time.

Week 7 — Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, and Regulation

Skills and activities: Students interpret speeches containing neologisms, Anglicisms, and terms that do not yet have established Greek equivalents. They examine how to justify their choice of an available Greek term, a loanword, or an explanatory paraphrase.

Students practice searching their terminology resources quickly between speech segments without disrupting the flow of their interpretation. The midterm assessment includes interpreting a three-minute speech without notes and a six-minute speech with notes. Feedback helps identify individual practice needs.

Building on Course I: Students learn to handle terms without established equivalents and conduct targeted terminology searches between segments. The speeches used in the midterm assessment are twice as long as those in Course I.

Week 8 — Geopolitics, Defense, and Crisis Management

Skills and activities: Students interpret diplomatic discourse on politically sensitive issues, paying particular attention to euphemisms, descriptions of the parties involved, place names, and language used to make or avoid commitments.

Practice includes consecutive interpreting of 7–8-minute statements followed by question-and-answer exchanges involving aggressive or misleading questions from journalists. Students work on maintaining composure and professional delivery under time pressure and in tense exchanges.

Building on Course I: Brief question-and-answer exchanges develop into demanding interactions with journalists that place greater pressure on the interpreter.

Week 9 — Asylum and International Protection: Interviews with Vulnerable Individuals

Skills and activities: Students interpret simulated asylum interviews involving accounts of traumatic experiences. Attention is paid to interruptions and discontinuities in the narrative, dates, place names, and family relationships. Interpretations must be complete, accurate, and delivered in the first person.

Activities address the asylum applicant’s distress and the interpreter’s emotional responses alongside impartiality and professional role boundaries. Practice includes note-taking for turns lasting 30–90 seconds and requests for clarification that are made explicit to all participants.

Building on Course I: Practice progresses from short public service dialogues to interviews involving vulnerable individuals and traumatic experiences. Longer turns are supported by note-taking.

Week 10 — Medical Communication in Challenging Situations

Skills and activities: Students interpret simulated medical encounters involving the delivery of bad news, discussion of treatment options, and informed consent. Emphasis is placed on accurately conveying medical terminology, dosages, probabilities, and risks, as well as recognizing when a possible misunderstanding needs to be flagged.

Students develop a terminology resource linking medical terms with language patients can understand. Each turn lasts 30–90 seconds.

Building on Course I: Practice expands from care instructions to breaking bad news and obtaining informed consent. Terminology resources include both specialized terms and their plain-language equivalents.

Week 11 — Criminal and Administrative Justice: Interpreting Hearings

Skills and activities: Students interpret a simulated hearing involving questioning, cross-examination, denials, claims, and procedural language. Particular attention is paid to faithfully conveying each speaker’s register, hesitations, and self-corrections.

Students practice managing turns among more than two participants and explicitly acknowledging and correcting interpreting errors. A graded simulation involves interpreting in both directions, with turns lasting 30–90 seconds.

Building on Course I: Two-person dialogues develop into hearings with multiple participants, cross-examination, and the need to correct interpreting errors promptly.

Week 12 — Negotiations, Business Communication, and Remote Interpreting

Skills and activities: Students consecutively interpret negotiations and business presentations lasting 8–10 minutes and involving proposals, counterproposals, terms, and deadlines.

Practice includes online and hybrid meetings, with attention to checking audio and connections, handling transmission delays, managing turns, resolving technical problems, and coordinating with the chair. Students submit their second terminology resource assignment.

Building on Course I: Negotiations and consecutive interpreting in online or hybrid meetings are introduced, including the additional demands created by technical problems.

Week 13 — Cultural Diplomacy and Official Ceremonies: A Simulated International Conference

Skills and activities: Students prepare for and participate in a simulated international conference featuring opening speeches, formal addresses, toasts, and a roundtable discussion. They practice interpreting cultural references, literary quotations, and humor, choosing Greek wording that preserves both meaning and communicative purpose.

Students consecutively interpret a main segment lasting 10–12 minutes and the question-and-answer exchange that follows. They use and evaluate their terminology resources during interpreting and update them after the simulation. The unit concludes with self-assessment, peer assessment, and an evidence-based review of progress.

Building on Course I: A conference simulation with segments of up to six minutes develops into a simulated international conference with 10–12-minute segments, ceremonial speeches, cultural references, and ongoing evaluation of terminology resources in use.

References

Greek-Language Reference

Ιωαννίδης, Α. (2022). Θεωρία και πράξη της διερμηνείας [Theory and practice of interpreting]. Κάλλιπος, Ανοικτές Ακαδημαϊκές Εκδόσεις. https://doi.org/10.57713/kallipos-93

References in Other Languages

Gile, D. (2009). Basic concepts and models for interpreter and translator training (Rev. ed.). John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.8

Gillies, A. (2005). Note-taking for consecutive interpreting: A short course. St. Jerome Publishing.

Gillies, A. (2017). Note-taking for consecutive interpreting: A short course (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315648996

Gillies, A. (2019). Consecutive interpreting: A short course. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315648972

Jones, R. (2002). Conference interpreting explained (2nd ed.). St. Jerome Publishing.

Pöchhacker, F. (2022). Introducing interpreting studies (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003186472

Rozan, J.-F. (1984). La prise de notes en interprétation consécutive. Librairie de l’Université.

Setton, R., & Dawrant, A. (2016a). Conference interpreting: A complete course. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.120

Setton, R., & Dawrant, A. (2016b). Conference interpreting: A trainer’s guide. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.121

Souza, I. E. T. de V., & Fragkou, E. (Eds.). (2020). Handbook of research on medical interpreting. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9308-9

Wadensjö, C. (1998). Interpreting as interaction. Longman.

Woo, K. (2025). Analysis of student interpreters’ self-assessment from the perspective of self-regulated learning. FORUM, 23(1), 85–106. https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.24006.woo

Related Scholarly Journals

• FORUM
• The Interpreter and Translator Trainer
• Interpreting
• Translation & Interpreting

The initial article The is disregarded when alphabetizing journal titles.

Sources for Teaching Materials and Terminology Research

• Assemblée nationale
• Assemblée nationale du Québec
• Council of the European Union Video
• Cour européenne des droits de l’homme — Webcasts of Hearings
• Élysée — Présidence de la République française
• EUR-Lex
• European Commission Audiovisual Service
• European Parliament Multimedia Centre
• France 24 — French-Language Edition
• France Culture
• FranceTerme
• IATE
• INA — Institut national de l’audiovisuel
• ONU Info
• ORCIT — Online Resources for Conference Interpreter Training
• Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
• ParlVU — Parlement du Canada
• Public Sénat
• Radio-Canada — ICI
• RTBF
• RTS
• Speech Repository
• TERMIUM Plus
• TV5Monde
• UN Web TV
• Vitrine linguistique — Grand dictionnaire terminologique

Teaching Methods

The course is taught in person in the interpreting laboratory. It combines brief theoretical presentations, demonstrations in which the instructor explains her interpreting choices, individual practice, and work in groups of three.

Students take turns as speakers, interpreters, and listeners or observers. Practice follows a consistent sequence: an initial interpretation, self-assessment supported by examples at specific timestamps in the recording, feedback, a second attempt focused on identified difficulties, and application of the improvements to a new excerpt.

Compared with Consecutive Interpreting I: French into Greek, the speeches gradually become longer, faster, and more information-dense. They also feature more developed arguments, a wider range of rhetorical techniques, shifts in register, and a greater variety of accents. Practice takes place under increasingly demanding conditions, including speeches read from scripts, question-and-answer exchanges, and online or hybrid meetings.

Dialogue interpreting in public service settings is taught through simulations involving sensitive content and more than two participants. Emphasis is placed on professional ethics, role boundaries, and managing emotional strain.

Terminology preparation is integrated throughout the semester. Students collect parallel institutional texts and identify candidate terms using corpus analysis tools and, where permitted, AI assistance. They verify terms against official terminology databases and organize the material in an interpreter-oriented terminology management tool or a structured spreadsheet. Resources are organized for quick searching, including on a mobile device. They are tested during practice and updated after each assignment.

Use of Information and Communication Technologies

Practice is supported by digital learning materials, online speech collections, and audiovisual archives maintained by institutions and media organizations across different French-speaking regions.

The course’s eClass site is used to post materials, instructions, and deadlines, collect assignments, recordings, and terminology resources, and provide feedback. Teaching also draws on a projector, listening and recording equipment, videoconferencing platforms, official terminology databases, corpus analysis tools, and terminology management applications.

Specialized digital workspaces and practice environments (Workbenches), along with H5P-compatible tools, support interactive activities combining text, speech, sound, and images. Students use these resources under the instructor’s guidance and close supervision.

The following rules govern the use of artificial intelligence (AI):

• Permitted uses: AI may be used only for the educational purposes described below and under the instructor’s strict supervision.
• Preparing teaching materials: The instructor may use AI to create and adapt materials for advanced interpreting practice. These include memory exercises; multimodal activities combining sound, images, and text; audio and visual stimuli presented sequentially or simultaneously; exercises of increasing difficulty; and multiple-choice questions. Every activity is reviewed before it is used in class with the available audiovisual equipment.
• Digital practice and H5P: AI may support the integration of specialized practice environments with eClass and the incorporation of H5P-compatible tools. These environments support interactive exercises involving different types of material, changes of speaker, and gradual increases in difficulty, such as faster speech or more frequent turn changes.
• Assessment: AI is not used to assess students except in specific cases for which the instructor has established clear conditions and criteria. Any such use remains under the instructor’s control. Final assessment decisions and grading are solely the instructor’s responsibility.
• Assignments and preparation: Students may not use AI to write assignments or reflective texts. For research and preparation, AI may be used within the specialized practice environments or for an initial exploration of a topic, provided that information is cross-checked and sources are verified. This permission does not extend to using AI to produce submitted work.
• Terminology resources: AI may assist with the initial identification of candidate terms in corpora, suggest equivalents, and help organize the information in each entry. Terms and proposed equivalents must be verified against official terminology databases such as IATE, institutional sources in the relevant field, and official parallel texts. Rejected suggestions are recorded in the verification log. AI responses do not count as supporting sources and do not replace students’ own research or writing.
• Critical and responsible use: The course examines the capabilities and limitations of these tools, the accuracy of their outputs, omissions, distortions of meaning, bias, and suitability for interpreting. Students also learn to select tools using evidence-based criteria, with particular attention to protecting confidential material and using technology responsibly.

Assessment

Initial Diagnostic Assessment

An ungraded diagnostic assessment takes place in Week 1. It includes consecutive interpreting of two speeches that have not been provided in advance: a two-minute speech without notes and a five-minute speech with notes. Students also complete a self-assessment questionnaire.

Performance is compared with the level achieved at the end of Consecutive Interpreting I: French into Greek. The results are used to identify two improvement priorities for each student.

Formative Assessment and Ongoing Feedback

Throughout the semester, students complete weekly exercises that support their progress. These must be submitted within 48 hours and do not count toward the course grade.

Feedback is descriptive and addresses each criterion in the assessment rubric separately. It is combined with self-assessment and peer assessment in groups of three, with students rotating the roles of speaker, interpreter, and observer, or through whole-class discussion.

Terminology Resource Assignments

Students complete two terminology preparation assignments for specific interpreting assignments. These are due 24 hours before the class meetings in Weeks 6 and 12, respectively.

Each submission includes:

• A one-page briefing on the interpreting assignment.
• A corpus of parallel institutional texts used to identify candidate terms.
• A terminology resource containing 40 entries, organized in a terminology management tool or a structured spreadsheet.

Each entry records the French term, its Greek equivalent, a brief definition, an example in context or a common French collocation, a dated source reference, verification status, and usage notes.

Each assignment is accompanied by two logs:

• Verification log: Records rejected candidate terms and AI suggestions, together with the reasons for rejecting them.
• Post-use review log: Records searches made during classroom interpreting, gaps and errors identified, and subsequent corrections.

Assignments are assessed on:

• Documentation and verification of terms and equivalents: 40%.
• Usability during interpreting, particularly organization, search speed, and practical value: 35%.
• Review and updating after use: 25%.

Portfolio

The portfolio contributes to the overall assessment and includes work from Weeks 3, 5, 8, 10, and 12.

Each sample includes:

• The initial interpretation.
• An improved interpretation following feedback.
• An interpretation of a new excerpt to demonstrate application of the skills developed.
• The interpreter’s notes.
• A 250-word analysis that also examines the use of terminology resources during interpreting.

Submission and assessment take place in two stages. Work from Weeks 3 and 5 is submitted within 48 hours after Week 5. Work from Weeks 8, 10, and 12 is submitted within 48 hours after Week 13, together with a final 500-word reflection.

The assessment criteria are:

• Evidence-based identification of strengths and difficulties: 40%.
• Application of improvements to new material: 40%.
• A plan for further development: 20%.

Summative Assessment

Summative assessment measures performance at specified points during the semester. It consists of the midterm assessment, the bidirectional interpreting simulation, and the final examination.

Midterm Assessment — Week 7

The assessment involves interpreting two French speeches that have not been provided in advance, on a topic students have prepared:

• A three-minute speech, without notes.
• A six-minute speech, with notes.

The two interpretations are weighted equally. Individual written feedback is provided before Week 9.

Bidirectional Interpreting Simulation — Week 11

The simulation lasts 12–15 minutes and recreates a hearing involving more than two participants. Students are assessed individually.

Interpretations from French into Greek account for 70% of the grade. The remaining 30% assesses interaction management and professional ethics, as follows:

• Maintaining professional role boundaries, impartiality, and confidentiality: 10%.
• Managing turns and interpreting in the first person: 10%.
• Making requests for clarification explicit to all participants and openly correcting interpreting errors: 10%.

Final Examination

The final examination takes place in person and involves consecutive interpreting with notes of two French speeches that have not been provided in advance. The speeches are set in a European or international institutional context and are weighted equally:

• An eight-minute speech.
• A twelve-minute speech followed by a brief question-and-answer exchange.

The topics are announced 48 hours before the examination, but the speech texts are not provided. Students have twenty minutes to prepare immediately before the examination.

Students may use their personal terminology resource, provided its entries have been verified, either in print or on a mobile device without internet access. Prepared translations, live transcription, and automatically generated interpretations are not permitted.

Common Assessment Criteria for Interpreting Performance

Interpretations are assessed using five criteria worth a total of 100 points:

• Faithful rendition of the content and the speaker’s stance: 45 points.
• Organization, coherence, and reconstruction of the speech: 20 points.
• Natural, accurate Greek in an appropriate register: 15 points.
• Quality of oral delivery: 10 points.
• Accuracy of terminology, proper names, and numbers: 10 points.

Each criterion is rated on a performance scale from 0 to 4. The score is calculated by multiplying the maximum points for the criterion by the performance rating and dividing the result by 4:

Criterion score = maximum points for the criterion × performance rating ÷ 4.

The same error is not penalized twice.

Assessment criteria and schedules are posted on eClass before the corresponding graded assignments and assessments.