INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN PROFESSIONAL INTERPRETERS TRAINING

New technological environment has changed interpreter's performance which is impossible without wide-spread use of ICT and, as a result, their integration into prospective interpreters' training. The paper analyses the current statues of ICT in interpreter training courses, in particular computer assisted interpreter training (CAIT); offers a critical overview of CAIT tools and ways of their implementation into professional interpreter training The most wide-spread and popular CAIT tools have been defined and described: websites, speech repositories and video corpora, course management system Moodie, video conferencing tools, a self-contained 3D virtual learning environment IVY, and interpreter training software courses used in lingua laboratories or computerised classrooms. The overview of CAIT tools provides an opportunity to demonstrate different ways of using ICT in prospective interpreters' training, which can be used both by students in the process of their self-study work and teachers in order to improve their qualification and professional skills. The authors also share their experience of using CAIT tools in prospective interpreter training. They suggest ways of teaching consecutive and simultaneous interpretation by means of course management system Moodle and video conferencing tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom in terms of distance learning, and interpreter training software Dialogue Nibelung in computerised classrooms. This software for interactive language learning, hardware for simultaneous and consecutive interpretation and workstations for multimedia classrooms turns a classroom into a multimedia environment. The conclusions emphasize the need for further studying the of ICT educational potential in the prospective interpreters' training. The perspectives of introducing a self-contained 3D virtual learning environment IVY, developed by the European Language Council Special Interest Group on Translation and Interpreting for Public Services (SIGTIPS) in Surrey University (the UK), into Ukrainian higher education institutions has been presented.