Riverland Community College is offering Command Spanish, a program that teaches English speakers how to communicate with people who only speak Spanish.

Tuesday, July 03, 2001

Riverland Community College is offering Command Spanish, a program that teaches English speakers how to communicate with people who only speak Spanish.

"We want to help people become a little bit more literate when its related to their work," said Kari Lenort, a customized training representative in Riverland’s Workforce Literary Training and Services Program.

She said the college started the program because of a specific need in the Austin-Albert Lea area.

"We have a lot of Spanish-speaking folks out there who can not grab onto basic terms in English, and we have a lot of English-speaking people who are either employing Spanish-speaking people or work with Spanish-speaking people," she said.

Teresa Nolander, who is specially trained in how to teach Command Spanish, thinks that her work is very important.

"In this area, we’ve seen such a need because of the recent wave of immigration," Nolander said.

Some classes meet six times in two-and-a-half hour sessions, and teach Spanish to people who work in the health care and service sector.

The focus is on workplace terminology specific to that business, Lenort said. For instance, health clinic staff may learn the Spanish words for different medical conditions and symptoms, while a production line supervisor would learn the names of tools or safety requirements associated with the job.

"Its such a simple way to learn, all they are going to learn are just the phrases they are going to learn for their job," Nolander said.

"Programs like English as a Second Language are really general. We’re trying to create a whole language approach for people. In this type of language approach, they don’t get overwhelmed with too much information."

Both Nolander and Lenort think that the program has a much wider potential for bridging community divides.

"Once you get to know people on individual levels, and not just this big mass of humanity, you can now create a relationship with them and that totally changed the dynamic of how you deal with that person," Nolander said.

Command Spanish costs $125, and includes audio tapes and textbooks. Classes start July 16 in Austin, Albert Lea and Owatonna.

Call Sam Garchik at 434-2233 or e-mail him at newsroom@austindailyherald.com.