Workforce Language Services

How cool is that?  Just when I was lamenting the fact that there is such a high demand for qualified translators and interpreters, but very few places to study for these fields, I find an article describing elective courses in translation and interpretation.  Three of the students in the program have already passed the Department for Social and Human Services certification test and are planning to take the test for court certification next spring.

It’s exciting to see that youth who’ve grown up bilingual are able to get the training necessary to capitalize on that as early as high school:

Sergio Jara has spent his youth interpreting for his Spanish-speaking parents during trips to the store or translating letters in the mail.

It’s just something you do to help your parents, said the first-generation American.

Even though he already spoke the language, he studied Spanish in middle school and during his freshman and sophomore years at Pasco High School. He knew there were “slight differences” in the Spanish he learned at home and the proper language taught in the classroom.

“I want to perfect it,” he said.

In planning his junior year curriculum, Jara’s counselor recommended he take English/Spanish translation and interpretation.

The two-year elective program is offered at Pasco High and New Horizons High School in Pasco. It is geared at helping students develop interpreting skills so they can get a job in the medical, legal or social services fields.

Given his upbringing, Jara expected it to be effortless but soon found he was wrong.

“It was easy because I know both languages but that is only part of it because you have to create these skills with these languages to help you,” he said.

Click here to read the entire article.