Bilingual SLP

[CocoCoco]

Oh, wow, there are so many bilingual continuing education classes! I have hope! Thanks so much for passing on those links!

 

Yes, I never call myself trilingual with laypeople or when interviewing for jobs. I am trilingual, but to the layperson that sounds like I mean I speak my other languages just as well as I do English. And I don't. Could you send me abroad to a Chinese or Spanish speaking country and I'd be able to navigate everything in the native language? Yes - actually, I've worked/taught/studied/lived in both Chinese and Spanish speaking countries. But what trilingual means in practice and what it means to laypeople are very different things.

 

Absolutely.  And even one step futher from the practice/interpretation point - overlay on top of all of this the ability to work with patients (or clients or students) and their families to deliver compentent service in the second language.  I don't know about you other folks on here, but most of my experience with Spanish speakers (living in Argentina and Spain, working to provide social services for agricultrual migrant workers in Northern Illinois, working as an interpreter for multiple school districts, etc.) has been with adults.  Now clearly one wouldn't just be working with children in Spanish, but I think that most jobs looking for bilingual SLPs are school-based (at least from what I've seen in the job postings).  So, at least in my opinion, there is still a futher important component, which is developing the sociopragmatic skills to work effectively with children in the target language.  Just my two cents, but an important consideration. 

 

Luckily, there are lots of resources besides grad program certificate training that are available for someone wishing to develop his/her bilingual abilities. 

[autismadvocate]

Absolutely.  And even one step futher from the practice/interpretation point - overlay on top of all of this the ability to work with patients (or clients or students) and their families to deliver compentent service in the second language.  I don't know about you other folks on here, but most of my experience with Spanish speakers (living in Argentina and Spain, working to provide social services for agricultrual migrant workers in Northern Illinois, working as an interpreter for multiple school districts, etc.) has been with adults.  Now clearly one wouldn't just be working with children in Spanish, but I think that most jobs looking for bilingual SLPs are school-based (at least from what I've seen in the job postings).  So, at least in my opinion, there is still a futher important component, which is developing the sociopragmatic skills to work effectively with children in the target language.  Just my two cents, but an important consideration. 

 

Luckily, there are lots of resources besides grad program certificate training that are available for someone wishing to develop his/her bilingual abilities. 

 

In Spanish, at least, I actually have the child experience - I volunteered teaching third grade in a Costa Rican elementary school. I was supposed to just be an assistant, but so many teachers took absences (dunno if anything was going on behind the scenes at the school or not, I think there may have been some drama) that instead of assisting the third grade teacher, I ended up teaching on my own the combined second and third grades. And, yes, this was completely in Spanish (except when I was doing their English lessons, naturally, but all the other subjects were in Spanish). So I ended up with a bit more experience with children than I'd anticipated, lol.

[combustiblecake]

I kind of looked at all the messages and I'm wondering if as a native speaker of Spanish will I be tested on proficiency? Because that sounds kind of tedious in my case.