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2.2 Early history of simultaneous interpreting training 
Since the first writings on the subject (Herbert, 1952; Paneth, 1957) more than fifty 
years ago, the training of simultaneous interpreting has undergone considerable 
development and institutionalization. Mackintosh (1995: 122-128) suggested that 
there is now a widely accepted training model which implies, for example, that 
trainers should be “practicing conference interpreters, preferably AIIC members” 
and “use material taken from actual conferences as teaching material”. In line with 
Mackintosh’s (1995) “Training paradigm”, it is also suggested that “good training 
programs offer students sufficient exposure to a variety of speakers” (Moser-
Mercer, 1994: 15). As mentioned in Pöchhacker’s (1999) paper, Kurz (1989, 1990) 
and Cenková (1994) recommend using different types of video recordings such as 
live, audio- or videotaped speeches, whereas Schweda Nicholson (1993) and 
Schjoldager (1996) describe correction techniques and suggest feedback sessions. 
In general, contributions to the didactic literature on interpreter training often take 
the form of report by teachers willing to share their particular approach (which can 
be descriptive or prescriptive). The prescriptive approach is used in textbooks on 
interpreter training (e.g. Seleskovitch & Lederer 1989, 1995; Gile, 1995). 
Interpreter training is experiencing a growth, especially in China, as more didactic 
issues are being investigated through systematic empirical research.
2.3 Gile’s effort model of simultaneous interpretation 
In the seventies, some models on information-processing paradigm were 
developed to account for the mental operations of SI (Gerver, 1976, Moser, 1978). 
More recently, models on cognitive science, such as Setton’s (1997), have also 
been developed. All of these are valuable as they take into consideration all the 
relevant developments in cognitive psychology, neurolinguistics, and linguistics 
(Gile, 1999). However, they have not been subjected to much testing over the last 
two decades, probably due to a lack of resources and due to the complexity of the 
mental operations involved.

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Teaching simultaneous interpreting 
 
page 25 
As said in Section 2.2, Daniel Gile has a prescriptive approach of interpreter 
training and proposed his Effort Model to help interpreters understand the 
“difficulties [of interpreting] and select appropriate strategies and tactics” (Gile, 
1992: 191).
The Effort Model is based on the idea that the brain has a limited 
capacity and that the difficulties in interpretation are due to time constraints and 
the need to divide attention between different operations (Gile 1995: 91). This 
model is based on three non-automatic interpreting Efforts (see Gile 1999: 154, 
Setton 1999: 35 for a review): 
1) Listening and Analysis Effort: it includes all the mental operations 
between the perception of discourse and the moment at which the 
interpreter decides to say or not say what he/she heard. 
2) Production Effort: it includes all the mental operations between the 
moment at which the interpreter decides to convey the meaning and the 
moment at which he/she actually formulates it in the target speech. 
3) Working Memory (WM) Effort/ Short-Term Memory (STM) Effort: it 
includes all the memory operations from the time a segment is heard to 
when it is reformulated in the target speech or disappears from the memory. 
The sum of the three Efforts represents the total capacity required, which cannot 
exceed the available capacity. The Coordination Effort, which is the management 
between the three Efforts mentioned above, causszes further energy consumption 
for the interpreter. If one of the three Efforts needs more resources at one moment, 
a part of the capacity is diverted from the others. However, there is a cognitive 
overload whenever the capacity is insufficient, either in terms of the individual 
efforts or for the cognitive system as a whole.