Hosting multi-language groups

[Ria Baeck]

Copied over from the emaillist, Autumn '12:

Hello everybody,

I am writing to ask for any advice or experiences hosting participatory conversations for multilingual crowds. What has worked for you, what has not and any ideas or advice you might want to share with us.

My partner Zulma is co-hosting a 3 day event in Panama for the UN together with Linda Mitchell. The event gathers around 80 young women leaders of Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of the non western world. Most of the participants (about 60) speak Spanish, and the rest speak English and some French, some of them as a second language.

The UN will provide simultaneous translation, but this will only be relevant for the plenary sessions, as soon as they are in smaller conversations in world cafe or open space then things are a bit more challenging.

We have suggested that we can find and make visible the resources within the group, that means to identify the people in the room who are bilingual and give them a special color badge or something so that people who need translation can locate them and join conversations where there is people who can help. We will also be using a lot of graphic support, both with graphic recording and with pre-made graphics in both languages to help with the explanations.

The UN people, who are not used to this kind of participatory processes, are a bit worried that due to the language barrier the girls won´t interact and that it will hindrance the participation of the non-spanish speakers.

Any thoughts or experiences with similar situations that you want to share with us are kindly appreciated,

Warm regards,
Rowan

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Dear Rowan, 

Your email is in beautiful synchronicity with some of the rich learnings we have been harvesting from working with multi-lingual groups - this week in St. Cloud Minnesota and a couple of months ago in South Minneapolis.  We had a rich group with three languages being translated including Spanish, English and Somali.  We were also working with interpreters and, of course, we were using our Art of Hosting processes.

Your idea of making the resources visible is perfect.  Let's not underestimate the power of self-organization and the willingness of people to reach across cultures.  

I take it that the translators are only available for the plenaries and not to assist with the smaller group conversations?  Our translators were available throughout the gathering and able to offer one to one or small group translation too.  Anne Gomez who was responsible for logistics on our team noticed that the translators got a bit lost in our AoH language at times and stopped translating and they also didn't immediately understand that the smaller conversations were equally and often more valuable than the larger group plenaries.  She began meeting with the translators in the morning and afternoon to go over things with them, discover their questions and what they needed. By the end of our three days, the translators were even adding their own voices to our circle which was beautiful and lovely.  We learned that giving them some idea in advance of what we were going to do was helpful and supplying them with information was also helpful.

People who spoke more than one language were not only willing to help with translation, they broke the ice for many who spoke another language to have their voice in the circle and that was happening in increasing frequency by the time we ended.  I know also from my experiences in Brazil, people are only too willing to step forward with translation although they often apologize for the quality of their English --- which is way better than my non-existant Portuguese.

If people are encouraged to find and support each other - and more than once so they know the invitation is real and genuine - they do step up, new friendships are forged and it is amazing the gifts that unfold.  I - or any member of our St. Cloud team, I'm sure - would be more than willing to have a conversation with you if that would be helpful.

Trust what you know.  Advocate for it.  It will work and most people will contribute - and our youth more so than most although in St. Cloud by the end of our time together we also had the voices of the elders in ways more beautiful than I could have imagined.  

Kathy

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Best wishes for Panama, Zulma and Rowan — we sent Linda (also on the hosting team) off from Belgium this morning!

I have had experience working with a group including translators for the deaf as well as working with a Chinese speaking audience.  Both of these work in a similar way to translators for other languages.  The very first thing I noticed is how much slower and more precise my own language became.  I needed to remind myself to slow down and leave space for good translation to happen.  This is especially true when telling stories.  I found out how to pace myself so that both the English speakers and the “other” speakers got the punchline almost at the same time.

I, too, noticed that it was helpful to brief the translators on the “dictionary” we are using — they can operate more fluently (!) when they have a glossary or lexicon of terms we regularly use.  This is especially true for sign, which uses a more physical representation of concepts.

And I also found that translators love participatory processes — even though they are more strenuous than a straight presentation — and get drawn in.

Have a great time AND a great learning!

Mary Alice

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Hi Rowan.

I live in Canada and work for a bilingual organization where national events often include both unilingual French and English speakers.

There is a fine balance between trust that it will work out and making arrangements to ensure that all are able to participate fully.

In small group work we will often have bilingual tables or French only tables. So we might modify the world café and encourage those who are bilingual to attend those, depending on how many tables there are. Whisper translation can be good, but does slow down the spontenaeity of the process. My advice is to encourage people to work in a language that is not their own, even if they only understand some.

 

If you can have volunteers prepared to move around and be where they are needed who can do some translation that is helpful.

Also the interpreters that we work with for plenaries are often very open to sitting with unilingual folks to help with the blending.

Having people who see their role as communications helpers who are bilingual will help those who are unilingual to feel supported and can make a big difference.

 

Please let the UN folks who are concerned know that in our experience, it works out. We have to trust that. Sometimes working through language barriers, using different forms of communication in a world café setting (body, drawing) can deepen the thinking and learning.

In terms of open Space, you might be surprised at how it works out, the topics people choose may have regional focus  or relevance that could lend themselves to people having common language abilities going there.  And again, if people are not learning they can move.

 

Trusting the group can be challenging in these situations but I encourage you to try it!

 

So there is no one size fits all solution and it does add a level of complexity for the hosts, without a doubt. But it will certainly be rich.

I look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

All the best,

Corina

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To all,

Thanks so much for your generosity sharing your inspiring experiences, we will certainly use many of your suggestions for the process in Panama next week.

We feel confident that helping people feel safe, trusting the power of self-organization and the willingness of people to help each other whispering and clarifying, and making sure translators understand the process and inviting them into the way of thinking and doing of AoH, will create enough bridges across languages that will make this a very meaningful experience for everyone involved. (starting with us)

GRACIAS!

Zulma and Rowan