Tips for a Successful Training for a Bilingual Audience

This past weekend, TJS celebrated the completion of its first 5-week bilingual storytellers training with a group of incredible women. These trauma-informed trainings equip people with lived experiences to tell their stories on multiple advocacy platforms, from focus groups to legislative hearings to rallies. We focus on helping women and survivors of trauma move their stories to a place of healing and eventually tell them to catalyze change. The thing we love most about this training is watching the evolution of each participant's storytelling potential and advocacy power.

Now, how did we manage to bring together multilingual trainers with a variety of expertise and build rapport and community with a class that was half Spanish-speaking and half English-speaking? At the beginning, the community piece especially seemed like quite a challenge. One of our goals is to ensure participants can lean on each other for support, that they feel present to one another's journey and in community with one another.

Here are some tips on how to hold a successful training with two or more languages.

1. Translation vs Interpretation - Know the difference. This might seem like a silly thing to point out for some, but it is a common misconception that these words are interchangeable. When you negotiate with your translator/interpreter, it is good to have these definitions clear. "Translation" is the word we apply to written text; "Interpretation" refers to spoken word.
2. Zoom is already set up for interpretation and closed captions, just as long as you turn it on in your settings. The closed captions are not foolproof, of course, so we recommend relying on a live interpreter. That way, when someone speaks in one of the language channels, their audio is muted and the interpreter's voice dubs over it. Technology is amazing, 'innit? Here's a link to the Zoom article to learn more.
3. Tongue twisters don’t translate. When you are holding a training for a bilingual audience, read through all your materials with the lens of, "How will this lesson transmit to non-English speakers?" We tend to see the world through the film of our own language, which can cause us to miss things we take for granted that could confuse an interpreter or a non-English speaking audience. We had to help one of our trainers develop workarounds for elocution exercises she put together that involved tongue twisters. The problem is, not all sounds are equal in each language. "She sells seashells by the sea shore" is not actually a useful tongue twister for a Spanish speaker, since the "sh" sound is not used in Spanish. We used a native speaker to come up with some comparable tongue twisters for their own elocution exercises.
4. Acronyms are not a great mnemonic device for bilingual audiences. Who doesn't love a good mnemonic device? ESPECIALLY when we are teaching new concepts, we use them all the time. Think of "the 3 S's of a great speech" (structure, story, self) and the "6 P's of public speaking" (pace, pitch, power, pronunciation, passion, and pauses). And in our general colloquialisms, acronyms roll off our tongues all the time: "Feeling FOMO!" "I need this by COB tomorrow!" This might seem obvious when we say it, but acronyms and mnemonic devices like "The 3 S's" do not translate, of course, because other languages have different words that start with different letters. One of our trainers wanted to talk about the "6 W's" of storytelling (who, what, how, where...am I taking you back to 4th grade English class?). For Spanish speakers, of course, it's qué, quién, cuándo, dónde...  When planning your lesson or prepping your guest speakers, consider your non-English speaking audience to see what you might be able to come up with for their mnemonic device, rather than leaving them out of the lesson.
5. Guest speakers need more prep than meets the eye. Ahead of time, remind them to select their language channel if you are on Zoom. The last thing you want is for them to get halfway through introductions and say, "My Spanish isn't so good, but I think I figured out what some of you were saying." Additionally, make your speakers aware that you need to translate materials ahead of time, including powerpoints. This leads us to our next great tip...
6. Did you know Zoom has this amazing feature where you can show multiple Powerpoints at once?! You can have a Spanish powerpoint and an English powerpoint shared by different hosts/participants, and your trainees can select which screen they would like to view. Simply adjust your back-end settings to allow for simultaneous screen sharing.
7. Microsoft Office is a translation wiz. Let me first point out that human translators beat computers every time. They understand the nuances of the language and can discern layered meaning in a text, allowing for a smoother, more accurate read. However, if you're in a pinch for time or finances, Microsoft Word/Excel/Office will translate entire documents at the click of a button. Learn how here.
8. Communicate easily with bilingual teams. Part of our training involves group-building throughout the week, so we were able to set up our participants on Slack. Certainly you'd think it would be a challenge to have Spanish-only speakers on the same thread as English-only speakers, but the technology is way ahead of us already. WhatsApp, for instance, has auto-translation built in. And Slack allows you to install a feature to auto-translate to your own language.

We encourage you to use these tips to make your trainings more accessible to all language speakers. Please keep your eye on our blog for more tips down the road!
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