Conquering the Interpreter’s Operational Space: Sign LanguageInterpreting Students and their Acculturation to Deafblind Clients

The author reports on how interpreting students developed their evidence-based practice while becoming interpreters for deafblind people. Focus group discussions were conducted with students to explore their thoughts about interacting with deafblind people, and their experiences after such interactions. Data from the focus groups were analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff,2013), with the aim of investigating how the mix of classroom instruction, preparatory role-play, and practice placements influenced student\u27s evidence-based practice. The findings show that teachers contributing with their own evidence-based practice prior to the practice placements helped students develop the initial basis for their evidence-based practice. The opportunity to act as interpreters for deafblind people developed their evidence-based practice. In other words, students brought learning experiences from one arena and used them as a platform for further learning in a different arena. Students developed their evidence-based practice and conquered their operational space as interpreters through this combination of learning processes