This Diploma is your first step towards professional practice as an interpreter where you will verbally translate conversation between speakers who speak different languages. Interpreters provide a critical service, helping people to overcome language barriers experienced when accessing community services in areas such as health, education, law, business and travel. You’ll gain basic transfer skills for interpreting in general conversational settings, learn about professional ethics and improve language proficiency. Students for spoken languages will study courses that cover legal and medical terminology, while Auslan interpreting students will learn about health and education terminology. The program is suited to people who already have bilingual skills but have not yet reached the required level of specialized language proficiency for the Advanced Diploma. Electives and program structure You’ll complete 7 core courses and 5 elective courses. This program introduces you to the profession of interpreting and will train you to: Analyze, recall and reproduce source language messages in the target language in a broad range of settings Apply effective linguistic transfer skills and discourse management strategies. Through classes, workshops and guided group and individual learning activities, you will practice your interpreting skills and gain an appreciation of professional ethics and industry knowledge. Japanese, Mandarin and Korean are only available for full-time study. All other languages are offered as full-time and part-time, subject to minimum numbers. Career Demand for qualified interpreters is increasing due to high levels of interaction between people and cultures as a result of globalized economies and movement of people due to immigration and humanitarian reasons. A large number of people also face language barriers due to physical disabilities such as deafness or impaired hearing and require language assistance. Graduates find employment as freelancers, contractors to language services agencies, or work in public and private sector organizations such as hospitals, courts, businesses, government departments and agencies. Pathway options You can gain entry to the Diploma of Interpreting from RMIT Foundation Studies or a range of vocational study programs. Further study When you successfully complete the Diploma of Interpreting (LOTE-English) you may be eligible for entry into the following programs: Advanced Diploma of Translating Advanced Diploma of Interpreting (LOTE-English) Entry is not guaranteed and you may be required to submit a Bilingual test for assessment. Alternatively, you may be eligible for entry to an RMIT vocational study or undergraduate programs.