Chapter 1

Anchoring dialogue interpreting in principles of teaching and learning

In today’s multilingual societies cross-linguistic communication is increasingly frequent, especially when it relates to accessing services. When providers and clients do not share a language, an interpreter, either face-to-face or remotely, steps in to enable communication. This generally occurs in the form of a dialogue in which at least three interlocutors participate. The need for learning and teaching dialogue interpreting (DI) has increased exponentially in the last decades, given the current mobility of individual providers and users as well as social phenomena such as geographic displacement of large linguistic groups. In this chapter, we build on the basic principles of teaching and learning from education and applied linguistics (specifically language pedagogy) to discuss the curriculum design of DI. Grounded on principles of student-centeredness, interpreting pedagogy and Vygotskian views on education, this chapter is a space to explore some critical areas in DI programme design such as content, staff and assessment.