Language Is Your Superpower<\/a>\u201d podcast.<\/p>\nJohanna L\u00f3pez is a member of the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) Board in Florida and the first Latina to attain such a prestigious role via landslide vote in 2018. It was the culmination of a strategic campaign fully managed by her former students coupled with an impeccable career as an educator and advocate for marginalized youth. Ms. L\u00f3pez is fully aware that she has been tasked by the community she has served for over two decades to be the eyes, ears, and voice of students, parents, and educators\u2014especially those who look like her and who experience the most disparities. She takes this responsibility very seriously in her continued work championing minority student empowerment with a special focus on English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), supporting undocumented students, and advocating for the provision of better treatment for teachers and non-instructional staff.<\/p>\n
Ms. L\u00f3pez knows first-hand the importance of overcoming language barriers for effective community building. \u201cNumber one. You have to go to the community,\u201d she said. \u201cYou cannot depend on other people\u2019s opinions or because you are just only reading articles \u2026 you have to go to the community and you have to speak with the people who are facing the situations, and not listening to the situations from second-hand opinions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not speaking the language of the community that you serve doesn\u2019t mean you can ignore their needs, explained L\u00f3pez. \u201cYou have to find somebody who can translate to you what people are trying to say in their native language.\u201d She gave an example that \u201cif you try to make somebody from Puerto Rico, who doesn\u2019t know enough English, explain the situation they are facing, they sometimes cannot describe enough in their second language the way they feel.\u201d In other words, the essence of what someone is saying can literally get lost in translation if the person facilitating communication isn\u2019t fluent enough in the language and doesn\u2019t understand the cultural context and nuances.<\/p>\n
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. L\u00f3pez advocated for all information from the school system to be translated into every language represented within the schools. \u201cWe have a lot of information that sometimes did not go first-hand to our Hispanic community, or the Portuguese-speaking community, or the Vietnamese-speaking community. So, I requested publicly that we have those translations, because it is important. This is about life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Due to her efforts, the county\u2019s superintendent agreed to Ms. L\u00f3pez\u2019s request and \u201cnow they translate the manuals, and they post videos in different languages.\u201d When possible, L\u00f3pez says you should try to go beyond just translating from one language to another and address each audience separately. Ms. L\u00f3pez did this during the pandemic, \u201cwhen I had educational town halls, because it was a lot of information, you know, we were changing everything in the system. So, I provided educational forums, one completely in English, for 1.5 hours \u2026 and then one completely in Spanish \u2026 because when you have the translations, you know, our community is not going to feel the same way. Nobody is going to feel comfortable enough to participate in that town hall. So, I provided it in both languages, one after the other one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms. L\u00f3pez explains the value of treating the school\u2019s diverse employees with inclusive and equitable practices, as those individuals are ultimately who impact the students. \u201cI have a lot of janitors that are Hispanic, so I think they deserve to have the same information in their native language, and also for our bus drivers. \u2026 As a school board member, we have to be able to identify the populations and the ethnicities that we have in different areas, so we can provide information and be fair and equal to everybody, because this is our country. We want to be better, to provide good services for our students. If I serve my teachers, my bus drivers, and my janitors, I know for sure the students are going to feel more comfortable. They are going to have better services, because they [are around staff] that are being attended to and valued.\u201d<\/p>\n
The approach Ms. L\u00f3pez uses for effective community building\u2014by being inclusive of non-English speaking segments of the community she serves\u2014makes it easy to understand why she was the recipient of the prestigious Teacher of the Year award and is a popular School Board member, especially amongst her community\u2019s non-English-speaking populations. The difference Ms. L\u00f3pez\u2019s makes in the public school system of her community is a perfect example of the superpowers of language proficiency!<\/p>\n
Learn more about Johanna L\u00f3pez\u2019s inspiring story by tuning in to our podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone in a leadership role quickly learns the value of good communication skills if they want to be effective. This can be especially challenging if language is a barrier between the leader and those they are trying to lead. Language Testing International is proud to have provided language assessment services to many leaders around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,195],"tags":[245,228,249,27,250,155,246],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercial","category-language-proficient","tag-education","tag-inclusion","tag-language-is-your-superpower","tag-language-proficiency","tag-multilingual-services","tag-multilingualism","tag-representation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ltidevcloud.languagetesting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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