Working Group Online Discussions
After the first working group session in July, participants had an opportunity to interact in an online discussion before the next meeting. They responded to questions and ideas related to their sector, as well as to general questions related to long-term goals and innovative programs. Their comments were used to develop the agenda for the second meeting and the initial outline for the “solutions” section of the roadmap.
General Discussion
We’ve talked a lot about the need for employees with higher-levels of proficiencies in languages other than English in the business and government communities in Texas and about the desire to graduate more students with those proficiencies from our schools and universities. Now let’s try to envision an ideal situation. What would be your goal for 2027 in addressing the needs that have been articulated?
If you could have exactly what you’d like with regard to multilingual employees in your sector in 20 years, what would it look like? For the education sector, what would be your goal for students graduating from Texas educational institutions? Try to be as specific as possible.
Comments
- My goal for students graduating in 2027 includes a curriculum in Texas where all students in elementary school would be taught Spanish as a foreign language through the 6th grade. Beginning in the 7th grade, they would begin a second foreign language of their choice. At the University level, courses designed for specific areas of study such as banking, engineering, health services, etc. would be available and required for degrees in those subjects.
- Would the 2nd language be in addition to Spanish or instead of?
- The second foreign languge would be either in addition to the Spanish (if the student wishes to continue in Spanish) or in place of the Spanish. The difficulty in trying to continue the Spanish as well as another language is the availibility of time in the high school curriculum. There is probably only room in the daily schedule for one foreign language class.
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I think that classes in spanish should be offered several times during the year for government workers. These classes should be available for people with no skills, limited skills and also advanced skills. This would allow employees to continue learning. Many government employees of hispanic decent have just a limited knowledge of the spanish language which they learned as a child. Enough to know a little but not enough to really communicate in a dialog with clients. This would allow those employees to gain a working knowledge of the language that they could use to deal with the public. Those who already have a good command of the verbal language could learn to write it and so on. This would really provide a service for the community.
I see no reason why we couldnt bring in teachers from Mexico and Spain in to teach these classes, just as many countries bring in english speakers to teach their natives to speak.
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We must begin more business/government/education partnerships to both increase visibility to the need for addtional languages in the workplace and to establish programs to fund language and culture instruction.
When this is presented to the governor, we should stress his role to become a spokesman to business, governemental agencies,legislators, and educators on the need for foreign language speakers and training in our area. Specifically, he needs to urge them to work together in partnerships to not only raise visibility for the need in their respective entities but also to apply both the human and monetary capitol to ensure the success of programs put into place to meet the requirements we will have in 2012.
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In 20 years, a worker in my sector would be reflective of the population demographics in all levels of government. This would mean we were offering equal opportunities in government employment to everyone and promoting diversity in the workplace to match the diversity in the population. Those employees dealing directly with the public would need to be fully bilingual in English/Spanish. In certain areas where a large enough sector of the population needed another language, the workforce dealing in direct services to that population would have proficiency in that language (ex Vietnamese, French, etc) In the government sector, workers required to have that extra language proficiency would be paid extra for their language services.
For the education sector, my goal for students graduating from Texas educational institutions would be that the system has prepared them to at least meet the Spanish demand for language in the workplace. I would also burden the educational system with providing English as a second language for immigrant adults offered at night or on week ends and required of all parents with children in school. This would at least indicate to the general public that English language is not taking a back seat to Spanish, and that immigrants ,wishing to enjoy the American way of life, would be making the effort to learn the language and assimilate the culture of America. This would eliminate some of the phobias and beliefs being demonstrated by those conservatives who are promoting adoption of legislation for English only as the language of America.
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State and local governments would recruit widely and have a workforce that reflects the population.
For native speakers of LOTE, employers would provide both English language classes for those who need it, and higher level writing and speech classes in the LOTE. For employees who speak only English, employers would offer the opportunity to learn languages needed in the area—either onsite classes after work, or classes at local community colleges, partially or wholly subsidized by the employer.
With bilingual employees, employers would develop an assessment system to determine their ability as interpreters before allowing them to serve as interpreters. State and local government would pay a stipend for employees who serve as interpreters.
Staff would be fully trained in how to access interpreter and translator services.
- My goal is to enable my students to communicate in the target language proficiently on an intermediate level. Once that student is in an atmosphere that provides practice he or she may be able to reach a higher level. (Reading and writing skills will be at the level the job position requires.)
- Food for thought- I think that the current graduation requirements in Texas should be changed to include 4 years of foreign language in high school, students would be better prepared to continue with their foriegn language of choice in college. In the ideal world, students should be multi-lingual, not bi-lingual. Which, of course, means that the school level, languages need to be introduced at a much earlier age.
General Discussion
When we meet on Monday, July 30th we’ll hear from a few working group participants about some innovative programs in foreign language education.
- Do you know of any innovative programs outside of education that we could use as models?
- How did they get started (whose idea)?
- What process was used to move from “idea” to “action”?
- How did they get funded?
- Who were the key players (legislators, parents, citizens, business, etc.)?
These programs could be in business, government, the non-profit sector... And they don’t necessarily have to be related to language proficiency. They should just be innovative programs that “work” and that we could examine to see how they became successful.
Comments
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An innovative program that is working at the City of Austin. The City of Austin has a Mayor-City manager form of government. That means the city council makes and sets policy, the city manager carries it out. The city has a little over 10,000 employees. Of course the city manager has her management team made up of 4 or 5 assistant city managers, each in charge of 2 to 4 departments, each headed by a department director. There are deputy directors and assistant directors and managers and workers. One of the things important to the city manager was employee morale. There is a quarterly survey of the workforce to determine how the workforce feels about city policies, pay, leave, vacation, training, promotions, hiring practices, etc.
The city manager wanted to be able to get other feedback from the workforce without receiving it filtered through her chain of command. Therefore, she implemented the following program: She decided to create the City Manager’s Committee on Workforce Issues (Committee)as the vehicle through which she would be able to get communication from the bottom up without management interference. She directed each department to elect a representative and an alternate to the Committee, through a vote of all the members in the of each department.
She then holds a monthly meeting for about an hour and a half to 2 hours with the Committee. If a department representative can not attend, the Alternate is expected to fill in. Minutes are kept and posted on the Committee’s website. The members of the Committee are to solicit issues and questions or concerns that employees have or want to sent up the chain to the City manager for resolving. Once a year, the questions or issues sent up are grouped by area of interest and the Committee is divided into 2 or 3 subcommittees to tackle the issues set up by the workforce. The Subcommittee investigates the issue, (example FMLA leave, Bilingual Pay, better dental group coverage, career ladder planning, tuition reimbursement, etc)secures presenters to the subcommittee conducts stakeholder surveys, arrives at a recommendation and presents it to the full Committee and the City Manager.
Though this program, wee adopted many of the recommendations, instituted a Bilingual pay pilot and now a full Bilingual pay program, Enhanced Dental coverage, a corrective eye wear program, and an enhanced employee reward and recognition program. The subcommittees continue to work, the City manager is getting unfettered communication from the work force, and morale in the workforce is improving. This is a very successful City program.
