The international phone line connecting a downtown Los Angeles courtroom to a cellphone 1,500 miles away in Texcoco, Mexico, was repeatedly disconnected and difficult to hear at times.

But on that line hung the constitutional rights of Candido Ortiz, accused of drunkenly stabbing a man with a broken beer bottle and charged with attempted murder. Ortiz, 20, spoke only a variant of Mixe, a language used by about 7,000 people in the mountains of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

In a case that is unusual even for Los Angeles, a place that some call the mecca of court interpreters, officials were unable to find anyone in the United States who could translate for Ortiz. A three-month search eventually led officials to Eduardo Diaz, a university student in Mexico. (more…)

Twenty years later, St. Cloud State’s English as a Second Language program is the largest producer of ESL teachers in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and the second-largest producer in the state behind Hamline. Its program has about 200 students, and as many as 50 will get their degrees this year.

“Because there’s a job at the end of it is what attracts students to us,” Robinson said. “A student walks in and I tell them, ‘Do what I tell you to do, and you’ll get a job.’ ” (more…)

Since Rosa Espinoza moved to Stamford from Peru 16 years ago, she and her children seem to live in different worlds.

At home, she speaks her native tongue, Spanish. But in the ears of her two children — one born in the United States, the other only 2 when the family moved — Spanish is a foreign language.

Her children, like so many sons and daughters of immigrants, grew up with American television and English-speaking friends in English-speaking schools. Often they don’t speak Spanish at all.

“We speak Spanish to them, but they respond in English,” said Espinoza, 45. “Their first language is English.” (more…)

When the Surry County Board of Education decided that in order to be globally competitive students needed to learn to speak another language, the school system turned to the Rosetta Stone Language Software for helping to implement the goal.

The program was put into elementary school computer labs in the fall and offered a choice of Spanish or Mandarin Chinese instruction to third through fifth graders. Of the students in the nine elementary schools, 125 are taking Mandarin Chinese. The rest have chosen to take Spanish. (more…)

Silvina Amador goes to Holland Hospital every week for vaccines and iron supplements for anemia. When she first started going to the hospital years ago, there was a Spanish-language barrier. There was no one to interpret for her. Her husband or son would try to translate what the doctor or nurse told her. “Sometimes they didn’t know the names of certain things and they didn’t know how to explain them to me,” said Amador, of Holland Township. “I wanted to know the process of what was going on.”

Spanish-language interpreting is a large part of the interpreting program at the hospital. “We get between 1,500 and 1,700 requests for Spanish language interpreters each month,” said Karen Rigueiro, multicultural coordinator at the hospital. The hospital has three full-time interpreters, including Rigueiro, two part-time interpreters and six on-call interpreters. (more…)

ELL classes, also known as English Language Learning classes are designed to help students taking English as a second language learn the language. These classes are geared toward giving students the time to translate and understand the material. Junior Habibo Abdi has been taking ELL classes since she came here as a freshman. She said that the classes have helped her a lot.

“Well I came here and I only understood a little,” Abdi said. “Then I started learning the language and it helped me a lot. The language is key here.” Although Abdi said she does not mind living in America, she misses her home. Abdi and her family moved to America after living in a refugee camp for 13 years due to being chased out of Somalia by the war and her fathers death.

(more…)

Finding employment in today’s job market is tough. If you’re over 55, it gets tougher. Throw in limited English-language proficiency and it’s a nightmare. “People are in very dire straits,” said Joan Cirillo, executive director of Operation ABLE — a network that helps older workers train for and find employment in Chicago and Boston — “We’re just a bloodbath of downsizing here.”

Many other Chicago placement agencies and caseworkers agreed. They say it has become increasingly difficult to find jobs for workers over 55, especially those who have limited English-language skills. Those agencies are now stressing the importance of skill training and language tutoring for those who need it.

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