Workforce Language Services

Language Lines is often mentioned in articles about strategies for working around language barriers.  But this particular article about Pasco County’s demographic shift shows the impact that Language Line has had on communicating with non-English speakers at County offices. 

The article also provides a brief history of Language Lines Services and how heavily it’s currently being used:

Language Line Services, based in Monterey, Calif., has been around since 1984. The company’s first client was the police department in San Jose, and it has had cops and courts as clients ever since. Language Line now has approximately 25,000 clients, according to spokesman Dale Hansman, including hospitals, airports, grocery stores, credit card companies and 75 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. The company has 5,000 translators who speak 176 languages.

The economy is hurting. Not Language Line. Language Line is growing. The number of calls is going up. The number of clients is going up.

“It’s not a novelty,” Hansman said last week. “It’s a necessity.”

In Pasco, public transportation uses language line, the libraries use it, the 911 call center uses it, the sheriff’s office uses it.

To read the entire article from the St. Petersburg Times, click here.

Most high school grads have taken at least a couple of years of foreign language coursework.  Most have spent those years watching DVDs specifically made for language instruction and listened to their teachers’ careful, proper pronunciation.  But the thought of actually speaking to a native speaker strikes fear in the hearts of those who learned a language at school. 

Only the most intrepid can access opportunities for speaking a foreign language in the States, even one as popular as Spanish. 

But a high school Spanish teacher in Wichita has created opportunity for her students to practice their Spanish in real-life situations, volunteer for the Salvation Army, and gain an understanding of Hispanic culture.

LaVoie requires her advanced Spanish students to work a shift at the Salvation Army. They practiced all semester, LaVoie said.

“It’s the best opportunity I can provide,” she said. “There’s a huge accountability factor. If they screw it up, there could be a little kid that doesn’t get a gift.”

The Salvation Army shifts began about seven years ago, LaVoie said. Her class tried to sponsor a family, but there were none left. Instead, Salvation Army officials said the class could meet their need for translators.

I just love this idea.  What a great way to get youth who are learning Spanish to see how it’s actually spoken and get them to make personal connections with people from a different culture.

To read the article, click here.

An article in QSR.com describes the growing number of Hispanic people working in the food service industry, issues that arise from language barriers, and tools to combat these barriers for increased safety and productivity.

While these workers exhibit a willingness to learn and improve on the job, there is one drawback: effective communication. A large number of Hispanic workers in restaurant kitchens are not fluent in English; likewise, many restaurant managers are not fluent in Spanish. As a result, time is wasted trying to convey instructions between staff members. The fallout is more than just inefficiency; it also poses a potential safety hazard.

The article also described the movement in quick serve restaurants toward increased cultural competency and resources for learning so that ambitious employees can get the language skills necessary to progress in a company.  There are various books and software-based language learning resources mentioned in the article.  But companies interested in investing in their non-English speaking staff may also consider worksite English classes for workers or worksite Spanish classes for management and other employees.

In Charleston County, SC an elementary school has gone above and beyond what other schools and districts have done to work with children of Spanish-speaking parents.  This school truly seems to embrace the growing Hispanic population and the tone seems to be of excitement over bilingual education and outreach to Latino parents rather than the albatross of language barriers:

The district’s Hispanic population growth has necessitated the hiring of a bilingual parent advocate and a bilingual administrator. The school district sends parents letters and phone messages in Spanish. More classes are offered to Spanish-speaking parents, and translation software is available to schools across the district, Amey said.

“Everybody is more aware (of Hispanic families), and at every level in the school, the personnel and staff seek to support our students and parents now,” Amey said.

Midland Park has earned a reputation for welcoming all cultures, and school Principal Robert Candillo said that was one reason the school’s Hispanic population has shot up.

Anything that goes home to parents is sent in Spanish and English, whether it’s progress reports or homework for kindergartners. The school provides educational games for families with the directions in Spanish, and it holds its PTA meetings in Spanish and English. It employs a translator, three full-time and 2 part-time ESOL teachers as well as bilingual teachers, psychologists and speech pathologists to work with its Spanish-speaking students and parents.

The school also plans to pilot a bilingual immersion program in next year’s kindergarten class. Of course, the comment section is more of the same fear of being “taken over” by Latinos.

To read the entire article, click here.

The Grand Island Independent profiled National Guardsman Adrian Velez, who serves as one of two Hispanic liasions in Nebraska.  Through community outreach, he attempts to diffuse some of the fear and suspicion many Latinos, legal and illegal, have of people in uniform, especially if that uniform is tied to law enforcement. 

“There is a misconception of the National Guard,” Velez said. “People see the uniform, and (as guardsmen) we’re misperceived as part of a legal system putting people in jeopardy. People also think we just do the war thing.”

He uses those moments to tell people about the Guard’s domestic missions, such as helping with disaster relief, he said.

Velez attends school-related events, swings into Hispanic community cultural centers and attends meetings. He talks to people about the Guard and answers questions wherever he can.

The article also speaks about Velez’s outgoing and kind personality, which definitely allows him to connect with people and show them the man behind the uniform.  Because of his personality, he’s found that he’s made inroads with the Latino community and has been able to help families make more informed decision about whether involvement in the National Guard is right for them.

If you google “bad translations,” you are guaranteed to get a few belly laughs out of what you find.  Some are so deliciously absurd, you may think that they were made up.

In an effort to reach out to non-English speakers, many novice “translators” end up causing more confusion and giggles than increased understanding.  A light-hearted article in Coloradoan.com points out some of the gaffes that occur when people use machine translators or forget about the importance of proofreading:

According to at least one astute reader, Americans are also error prone when we try our Yankee hand at translation.

English-to-Spanish conversions tend to have a lot of incorrect and misplaced accent marks, and it turns out that if you try to wish someone a “Happy New Year” in Spanish but don’t manage to put a tilde over the “n” in “año” (Spanish for “year”), you’re wishing them a happy new something else, and it’s quite impolite. Oops again.

To read the entire article, with examples from other language pairs, click here.