Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Now that 2024 is behind us, we at NCI wanted to take a moment and reflect on the past year and share some of what we’ve done with you. We hope that it will serve as a springboard to an even better 2025!
2024 saw the continued examination of the promise and perils of generative AI’s potential impact on the field of translation and interpreting. As AI advances, the question of how to effectively and responsibly integrate it into our language access efforts has garnered tremendous attention. One important effort to answer these questions came out in 2024 when the SAFE-AI Task Force (an organization in which NCI’s Dr. Holly Silvestri is an active member) published its SAFE AI Task Force Guidance on AI and Interpreting Services. It will repay careful study!
NCI began to explore these questions in January 2024 when it hosted “A Roundtable Discussion of AI and The T&I Industry.” Out of this grew two new webinars focused on aspects of AI, “AI Unveiled: Empowering Translators and Interpreters for Tomorrow” (developed by Nora Díaz and Holly Silvestri) and “Machine Translation Post-Editing” (developed by Carola Berger). Both of these were offered for the first time in 2024.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to NCI’s work in 2024. Thanks to all our exceptional instructors and students! As always, thanks also to the University of Arizona College of Humanities for their unflagging support!
Below you’ll find a few highlights from our 2024. Have a look!
If you have any questions, reflections, or ideas for future initiatives, please let us know: ncitrp@arizona.edu. Please also share your professional successes with us. We love to hear about it when your hard work pays off with state or federal certification or other accolades! We wish you the very best 2025, personally and professionally!
NCI Training
As usual, in 2024 NCI’s primary focus was providing training for interpreters and translators. In addition to our regular offerings, we provided on-demand and customized training to several agencies on a number of topics, including:
- Oklahoma Interpreter Certification and Resource Center
- Tucson Unified School District
- Arizona Alliance for Community Health Centers
- Tucson Language Justice Collective
Our trainings also included a host of standalone webinars offered throughout the year, as well as our comprehensive Court Interpreter Training Institute (CITI), which ran from May 20-June 28. Here’s a bit about them!
Webinars
In 2024, NCI held 40 webinars which together provided professional development for over 1400 practicing and aspiring interpreters and translators. Just over half of these webinars were open to interpreters of all languages. We try to balance our Spanish-specific trainings and our open-language (that is, taught entirely in English) trainings, so that interpreters of all language pairs have professional development opportunities. If you have ideas for other trainings we might offer, please let us know: ncitrp@arizona.edu.
Several of our webinars in 2024 were new, covering topics we had not addressed directly before or covering them in a new way. In addition to the two AI-related webinar mentioned earlier, we expanded our 3-hour, open-language $25 Sight and Simultaneous Techniques and Skills webinar into two separate 3-hour webinars, one for each mode. In addition, we developed a new open-language consecutive webinar, “Consecutive Interpreting: Memory and Practice,” which is something like a “part 2” of our $25 consecutive techniques and skills webinar.
Court Interpreter Training Institute (CITI)
The 2024 Court Interpreter Training Institute (CITI) was our fifth CITI held entirely online, and our 41st CITI overall. It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this since 1983! Our 41st CITI hosted 36 working or aspiring court interpreters from 13 states as well as Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC.
As you may know, the CITI is one of the premier training opportunities for Spanish/English interpreters in the country. Held every summer, it offers 120 hours of intensive training focused on improving interpreting proficiency.
One way we measure its impact is through pre- and post-testing using our interpreting performance tests. This year, we decided to look at the results of the CITI pre-/post-testing in more depth to see more specifically how the training affected participants’ interpreting proficiency. Overall, we found a statistically significant average improvement in scores across all three modes, regardless of participants’ experience level. Here’s a look at the overall performance. Note that “Score Increase” refers to the absolute increase from pre- to post-, expressed as a percentage (so, “+5%” would reflect a change from a score of 10% to a score of 15%, for example). “% Improvement” refers to the change from pre- to post- (so the previous score of 10% to 15% would reflect a +50% improvement):
| Overall | Score Increase | % Improvement |
| Sight (Eng to Span) | +14% | +43% |
| Sight (Span to Eng) | +17% | +50% |
| Consecutive | +9% | +15% |
| Simultaneous | +18% | +47% |
| Total | +14% | +29% |
We found similar results for both aspiring and experienced interpreters:
| Experienced | Score Increase | % Improvement | Aspiring | Score Increase | % Improvement | |
| Sight (Eng to Span) | +13% | +25% | +20% | +85% | ||
| Sight (Span to Eng) | +13% | +23% | +20% | +80% | ||
| Consecutive | +7% | +11% | +15% | +32% | ||
| Simultaneous | +14% | +25% | +19% | +132% | ||
| Total | +11% | +19% | +18% | +62% |
It’s not surprising that novice interpreters showed the most significant improvement in proficiency, but it is particularly gratifying that even experienced interpreters, including state certified interpreters, also showed a double digit increase in their scores. It speaks to the CITI’s ability to make interpreters better.
The students’ experience of the CITI is also important to us. In 2024, as every year, we get a wide range of students, from relatively new, aspiring court interpreters to seasoned veterans preparing for state or federal certification. Here are some impressions from a couple of 2024 CITI alums:
Lastly, we’d like to thank all the instructors who made the 2024 CITI possible. Thanks to Joshua Elliott, Ernest Niño-Murcia, Carmen Patel, Carlos Radillo, and Gloria Rivera! Special thanks to Tamber Hilton, Carolina Duran, and Kelly Varguez for their excellent work running the intensive interpreting labs (as well as so much more)!
If you’re interested in the 2025 Court Interpreter Training Institute, let us know: ncitrp@arizona.edu.
NCI’S Online Translation and Interpreting Certificates
For a few years now, NCI has offered a Spanish/English Online Translation Certificate. This certificate targets aspiring translators with little or no formal training in translation who wish to develop their knowledge and skills in written translation. It consists of three 16-week courses—legal, medical, and business translation—that are self-paced, with weekly deadlines for activities such as readings, translation assignments, and exams. The Certificate has been extremely successful and has grown significantly in enrollment since it was first offered.
In 2023, using our Translation Certificate as a model, NCI developed a new Spanish/English Online Interpreting Certificate. The interpreting certificate consists of three courses focused on medical, legal, and educational interpreting. In 2024, we completed the first full cycle of the certificate. It was quite successful! We learned a lot and the next cycle should be even better.
We are taking all the lessons learned and applying them to a new certificate as well. NCI Director Dr. Sonia Colina has been working with several subject matter experts to develop a new Portuguese/English Online Translation Certificate. It’s nearly ready and we anticipate offering the inaugural course starting in Fall 2025.
NCI’s Outreach
Last year (as with every year, TBH), NCI advocated for language access and linguistic diversity at the University of Arizona, in our Tucson community, nationally, and internationally. In 2024, we reached out to University faculty members with an interest in translation and interpreting to explore how we could work together.
New Faculty Affiliates
Our new Faculty Affiliates come from across disciplines—ranging from Spanish and German to Public Health and Psychology. We have ten faculty affiliates thus far, all of whom are doing fascinating work. Here is a little about just two of them (it’s well worth exploring all of their work!)
Genesis Arizmendi
Genesis Arizmendi is an Assistant Professor in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences and Cognitive Science, and Director of the Multicultural Bilingual Certificate Program. She is committed to improving clinical-research practices and educational outcomes for Spanish-English speaking communities. Through her work, Dr. Arizmendi strives to advance equity in educational and healthcare systems by leveraging the unique strengths of bilingual communities and advocating for policies that recognize and value bilingual and bicultural identities.
Michael M. Brescia
Michael M. Brescia is Curator of Ethnohistory in the Arizona State Museum and holds several faculty affiliations across campus. As a historian who specializes in Mexico, he integrates translation and paleography in both his teaching and research. Michael views translation as an intellectual and cultural exercise that promotes an intimacy between the translator and the source material and, ultimately, enriches learning for monolingual audiences by providing access to content that would have remained unknown.
NCI’s Holly Silvestri spoke to Michael’s history class about the language access field, her experiences as a language access professional, and the difference between being fluency and proficiency. She also spoke to a class of future Speech Language pathologists about the most effectives ways to work with an interpreter and how to find a qualified interpreter to work with in school settings.
Off campus, Holly also presented on how Artificial Intelligence is changing the language services industry at 2024’s ATA conference alongside Katharine Allen. Even farther afield, she was the keynote speaker at the AUSIT (Australian Institute for Interpreters and Translators) conference further addressing the impact of AI on language service.
Finally, we’re collaborating with the University’s Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences to develop three training pathways to become a Speech Language Pathology Assistant with expertise in Translation/Interpretation (SLPA-TI). These include two new in-person undergraduate certificates (SLPA-TI and SLPA) and non-credit bearing microcredentials. This is a community-based, interdisciplinary project to help provide access to appropriate speech-language services for bilingual speakers. We are excited to lend our expertise to the project!
Once again, we wish you an excellent 2025! We’re excited about continuing to advance our mission, and we hope you’ll join us!