Oral examination

The Wisconsin Director of State Courts offers the Oral Proficiency Test for Certification several times per year.

Advanced and experienced court interpreters who have completed our training and written testing are encouraged to complete the certification process by passing the oral proficiency examination. To pass the oral exam, interpreters must possess a mastery of English language and the target language at the level of a highly educated native speaker, and have a thorough understanding of legal concepts in both languages. In addition, interpreters must be extremely proficient in specialized cognitive skills required to interpret in sight, consecutive, and simultaneous modes, and be able to convey messages accurately, completely and promptly.

We offer the oral test in the following languages: Arabic, Cantonese, French, Haitian-Creole, Hmong, Korean, Lao, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese. Other languages may be available by request. For 2008, the cost to register for the exam is $225 for the entire test or $75 per individual part.

Overview of the Oral Performance Examination for Prospective Court Interpreters – Consortium for State Court Interpreter Certification

Oral examination description

Sight translation

For this part of the exam, the candidate is asked to read a document written in English, while interpreting it aloud into the target language, and to read a document written in the target language, while interpreting it aloud in English. Each document is approximately 225 words in length. The candidate is given 6 minutes per document to review the content and perform the sight translation while being recorded onto a cassette tape.

Consecutive

During this segment of the exam, the candidate listens to a CD recording of an English-speaking attorney who is questioning a non-English speaking witness. The candidate must interpret aloud the English questions into the target language and the witness' answers into English while being recorded onto a cassette tape. The questions and answers are of various lengths ranging from one word to a maximum of 50 words. The candidate is given 22 minutes to complete this portion of the test.

Simultaneous

With this part of the exam, the candidate listens to a CD recording in English of an attorney's opening or closing statements to a jury or judge. This passage is recorded at a speed of 120 words per minute and is approximately 900 words in length. The speech continues for about 8 to 10 minutes without stopping. While listening through headphones, the candidate simultaneously interprets aloud all statements into the target language while being recorded onto a cassette tape. This segment takes about 12 minutes including instructions and equipment preparation.

Oral examination schedule for 2008

• Tuesday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 12
• Tuesday, June 24 and Wednesday, June 25
• Tuesday, September 9 and Wednesday, September 10
  

All test sites are in Madison.

For more information on eligibility and registration of the oral test, please contact carmel.capati@wicourts.gov or call (608) 266-8635.

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