When Fatima Cornwall began teaching her Spanish 381 Introduction to Court Interpretation class remotely in March, she worked with Learning Technology Solutions to set up and activate the language simultaneous interpretation feature on Zoom.
Cornwall is the Spanish language coordinator in the Department of World Languages, a U.S. Federal Court certified Spanish interpreter and a certified court interpreter in Portuguese and Spanish.
After returning to class from spring break, Cornwall’s students were able to use the Zoom feature which creates language channels so that speakers with limited English proficiency can hear interpreters in their own language.
Cornwall worked with Andrew Campbell, statewide language access manager, to provide a demonstration of the feature for the Idaho Supreme Court and the Third Judicial District. The Idaho Supreme Court now plans to provide training webinars for court interpreters and live testing for clerks and judges in order to implement Zoom for judicial hearings.
The U.S. courts for the District of Idaho also have started using Zoom’s language feature. Recently, Idaho’s four federally certified court interpreters, including Cornwall, used the feature in judicial hearings.