Sign Language Interpreting in Education

Sign Language Interpreting in Education is a 2 year Associates degree program here at
NTC. In the Focus of the program you will be working with students who are deaf or hard
of hearing in the school setting. When you get into the program obviously you will learn
Sign Language. And Sign Language classes are a lot of fun. We also help students prepare
for working in the community as a community interpreter.
Well I came in not knowing a stitch of sign. So to see my progress from day one to know
is pretty amazing. In addition to the staff working with you
to help you develop these skills we also have deaf people we refer to as deaf mentors from
the community who will come in. We have deaf instructors we have events that are held with
deaf people that come and just really right in there with them from day 1 we have deaf
mentors that come and work with us.
It’s a great opportunity for students having a deaf instructor, deaf mentors, deaf presenters
it really benefits the students and they appreciate having deaf role models.
In the program you are going to be fully immersed in not only American sign language but deaf
culture. Because the more contact you have with the deaf community and the more exposure
you have to the language the better you’ll be at interpreting
Our instructors work so closely with each and every one of us. And I think that’s
what I like the most is the individual attention we’re getting. So we do become the interpreters
that we want to become. Upon graduation students are eligible to get
their department of public instruction license to become interpreters in the educational
setting. It’s a challenging program but when you put the energy into truly learning
the skills it is gratifying. Is it always serious? No we have fun to, I especially love
when I see it on their face and you can see how excited they are when they’re starting
to truly develop the interpreting skills.