The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2020 - 29

class. This avoided some of the technical
glitches and the slow start we experienced
the first time as students learned to
navigate the online learning platform.
During our first class of the year, one
of us (Tracy) was present onsite in
the classroom while the other (Julie)
participated via Zoom. We reviewed
the online platform and some basic
objectives for the class, gave students
the opportunity of logging in to the
platform with either their own or laptops
loaned from Barton, and provided the
opportunity for students to meet each
other face to face.

Students expressed an increased
sense of pride in their bilingual
abilities and cultural heritage,
and a newfound determination
to use these abilities to serve
their community.

Research the pros and cons of your
online learning platform. After having
to rely on email submissions for audio
assignments and struggling with a clunky
gradebook system, this year we switched
to the Canvas Free for Teachers online
platform instead of Schoology due to the
ease of uploading audio clips and a more
user-friendly gradebook (both for the
instructor and students).

"There are so many ways of studying and
learning, and I feel this is one of the best
experiences I could have had."

Make the most out of observation and
preceptorship assignments. To increase
accountability for the observation and
the preceptorship assignments, we added
an additional module and assignments,
including observation guidelines, an
observation quiz, a group discussion, and
new vocabulary assignments.

RESULTS
At the conclusion of the class, an
anonymous online survey was
administered by Redwood Consulting
Collective, an outside evaluation firm.
Highlights of the results can be seen in
Figure 1 on page 28:
This is our second year using a flipped
classroom methodology to introduce
bilingual employees to the profession
of medical interpreting, improve their
Spanish fluency, and expand their
bilingual medical terminology. We
can safely say that it's proving to be
a critical and valuable component of
our comprehensive one-year program
to support heritage speakers on their
journey toward becoming professionally
certified health care interpreters. In the
words of several of our students:
www.atanet.org

" I feel honored to be part of this program.
I thought that I spoke Spanish properly,
but after this program I know that there is
always something to learn."

"You learn better study skills, like
self-reflection to better yourself with
interpreting. I didn't realize this was
a whole other career, which is really
awesome. So, at the end of it, it's actually
well worth the sacrifice."
NOTES
1.	
If you're unfamiliar with the term
"heritage speaker," here's a definition
from Language Line International: "A
heritage speaker refers to a person who
has learned a language informally by
being exposed to it at home, as opposed
to having learned it formally in a school
setting. It may be their native tongue-
the language they identify as being their
primary language-but more often than
not, their heritage language becomes
secondary to English, the language in
which they receive their formal education,
and is used the most in their daily life
outside the home."
2.	

Dual-role interpreters are generally ad
hoc interpreters who are hired in an
administrative or clinical position as
their primary role, but use their bilingual
language skills to serve as interpreters in
a secondary role. For more information,
download: Wilson-Stronks, Amy, and
Erica Galvez, E. Hospitals, Language,
and Culture: A Snapshot of the
Nation-Exploring Cultural and Linguistic
Services in the Nation's Hospitals
(The Joint Commission, 2007),
https://bit.ly/Wilson-Stronks-Galvez.

3.	

For more information on the Certification
Commission for Healthcare Interpreters,
see http://cchicertification.org/certifications.

4.	

The OPIc is an online test that provides valid
and reliable oral proficiency testing on a
large scale. (See: https://bit.ly/ACTFL-OPIc)

5.	

Information on tester and rater
certifications awarded by the American
Council on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages can be found at
https://bit.ly/ACTFL-certifications.

6.	

Shadowing is a technique used for
learning new languages and improving
fluency that involves listening to a source
audio while repeating what is said in
the same language with a slight delay
(décalage) as in simultaneous interpreting,
but without the language conversion.

Julie Burns, CT is a veteran
interpreter trainer, certified
health care interpreter
(Certification Commission
for Healthcare Interpreters),
worker's compensation
certified Spanish interpreter, and an ATA-certified
Spanish>English translator. She has an M.Ed. in
adult education. She is a former director of the
Bridging the Gap Interpreter Training program,
and has trained thousands of interpreters. She has
served as a board member of the National Council
on Interpreting in Health Care, International
Medical Interpreters Association, and California
Healthcare Interpreting Association. She has over
20 years of experience in health care interpreting
and translation, as well as extensive experience
in health care education and training in the U.S.
and Latin America. In 2018, she was conferred
the National Council on Interpreting in Health
Care's Language Access Champion award.
Contact: julieburns1217@gmail.com.
Tracy Young is a certified
medical interpreter, medical
interpreter trainer, and longtime advocate for the profession.
She is the coordinator of the
Language Access Services
Department at Barton Health in South Lake
Tahoe, California. She has an MA in Spanish
from the University of Nevada, Reno, and is the
founding president of the Nevada Interpreters and
Translators Association. In 2015, she was awarded
the Language Access Champion Award from the
National Council on Interpreting in Health Care.
In 2019, she was named California Healthcare
Interpreting Association's Trainer of the Year.
She continues to find innovative ways to make
language access a reality at Barton Health and
beyond. Contact: tyoung@bartonhealth.org.
American Translators Association

29
https://www.bit.ly/ACTFL-OPIc https://www.bit.ly/ACTFL-certifications https://www.bit.ly/Wilson-Stronks-Galvez http://www.cchicertification.org/certifications http://www.atanet.org
The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2020

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