<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><p align="center"><strong>CALL FOR PAPERS</strong><br>LESSIUS UNIVERSITY COLLEGE<br>and<br>UNIVERSITY OF NORTH FLORIDA<br>in collaboration with CETRA<br>organise a symposium on<br></p><p align="center"><strong>APTITUDE FOR INTERPRETING.</strong></p><p align="center"><strong>TOWARDS RELIABLE ADMISSION TESTING</strong><br></p><p align="center">Lessius University College, Antwerp, Belgium</p><p align="center">28-29 May 2009<br></p><p align="justify">Each year, conference interpreting schools organise labour-intensive and time-consuming admission tests. In the end, they accept a few hundred applicants, and reject many hundreds more, some 75% of those that apply. Of these few hundred accepted students, just over one half makes it to successful graduation. And what about aptitude and selection for community interpreting and sign language interpreting programmes? It seems that admission tests into interpreting schools need more of our attention. Unlike any other kind of assessment in interpreter training and professional life, admission screening requires<em>predicting</em> whether a candidate will be able to learn to interpret or not. This aspect places special demands on both admission testing and aptitude research, and the aim of this symposium is to explore them.<br></p><p align="left">We invite research-based contributions on the following topics:</p><ul><li><p align="left">aptitude for all forms of spoken language and sign language interpreting</p></li><li><p align="left">validity, reliability, administration and scoring of admission tests</p></li><li><p align="left">predictors of the interpreting skill</p></li><li><p align="left">commonalities and differences in aptitude for different interpreting modalities</p></li><li><p align="left">methodological issues of research into aptitude for interpreting (N.B. a dedicated roundtable on this topic will take place on May 29)</p></li></ul><p align="justify">Intending contributors should submit a 500-word abstract of their paper (30 min presentation + 10 min discussion). The language of the symposium is English. Abstracts should be sent to <u><a href="mailto:heidi.salaets@lessius.eu">heidi.salaets@lessius.eu</a></u> or <u><a href="mailto:sarka.timarova@lessius.eu">sarka.timarova@lessius.eu</a></u>. The deadline for submission is <strong>December 31, 2008</strong>. Contributors will be notified of acceptance by January 31, 2009. Contributors selected for presentation will be invited to submit a draft paper based on their talk by April 30, 2009, and a final version by June 30, 2009 for publication in peer-reviewed proceedings.</p><p><a href="http://www.lessius.eu/tt/nieuws/aptitude.aspx">www.lessius.eu/tt/nieuws/aptitude.aspx</a></p></span></div></body></html>