Most interpreting students (and their trainers) face negative emotions during their educational
path. Anxiety and stress are common, and can prevent students from performing
effectively. Yet, interpreter education mainly focuses on language and communication
skills, leaving emotional competence to the student’s personal growth. This article advocates
for a global approach to interpreter education, aiming at legitimating, understanding,
and transforming negative emotions in the educational practice by means of
a dialogic approach, grounded in the fields of Dynamic Phenomenology and Existential
Psychotherapy. While interpreter trainers are and cannot be psychotherapists, they are
communication experts and dialogue analysts who can harness their skills for educational
purposes. In this article, I describe a dialogic approach to on-line Dialogue Interpreting
education, experimented during two blended elective courses in Telephone Medical Interpreting
(2016-17 and 2017-18) and a Dialogue Interpreting course given on-line due to the
CoVid-19 pandemics (2019-20).
