Hand holding a glass globe over a stethoscope to signify medical interpreting

New Medical Interpreting Students Graduate

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Congratulations to the 14 students who graduated from the Tennessee Language Center’s Medical Interpreter Training session on Dec. 13. The students represented 3 states (Tennessee, Alabama, and Oklahoma), 5 Tennessee counties, and two languages (Spanish and Mandarin Chinese). Mandarin Chinese was a new language for TLC and increases our total number of languages served to date from 7 to 8. TLC’s program prepares students to take the test to become a certified medical interpreter through either the CCHI or the NBCMI, the two organizations that certify medical interpreters in the U.S. Find out more about TLC’s medical interpreting program.

Gavel resting on a desk with a book and balance in the background to illustrate our Court Interpreter Workshop

Fall Court Interpreter Workshop Concludes

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The Fall Court Interpreter Workshop had 26 participants representing 16 counties in Tennessee. For the first time, an interpreter for Karen, the language spoken in Myanmar and parts of Thailand, took the course. This workshop provided by the Tennessee Language Center is the first step in becoming an interpreter with the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Young hand holding older, wrinkled hand on top of hospital blanket

TLC Interpreter Webinar Focuses on End of Life Conversations

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TLC presented a webinar on Oct. 22 for interpreters, especially medical interpreters, about interpreting for end-of-life conversations. With palliative and hospice care becoming more common, interpreters are often present for these conversations, and the workshop focused on how to handle them.

“The subject was very interesting, and it does not get covered a lot,” said one attendee. “This was one of the best webinars I ever attended.”

TLC Works to Improve Disaster Communications in Nashville

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TLC has taken a leadership role in the newly launched Cultural Ambassadors for Disaster Communication (CADC) program. Together with the Nashville Mayor’s Office and Office of Emergency Management (OEM), TLC is co-leading the program that aims to improve communications during disasters with the immigrant and limited English proficiency communities with the ultimate goal of saving lives.

During previous disaster in the Nashville area like flooding and tornadoes, it was often hard to reach these communities before, during, and after with emergency information. The goal of the CADC is to have “ambassadors” within those communities that are already in trusted or leadership positions. OEM and TLC will provide special training to these ambassadors. The program launched this Fall and will continue the ambassador training through the rest of 2022 and into 2023. TLC Training Specialist Richard Ponce de Leon is representing TLC in the program.

TLC Teaching Custom Spanish Class to Staff at Second Harvest Food Bank

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Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee works to provide food to people facing hunger and to advance hunger solutions in Middle and West Tennessee. Recently, they approached TLC about a custom Spanish class for staff members. The 10-week class started early in September with 10 staff members participating.

TLC Adds Two New Project Managers

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TLC welcomes Genna Linton and Aimee Dunphy as Interpretation & Translation project managers. Genna will focus on interpretation while Aimee focuses on translation.

Genna is a certified medical interpreter and most recently served as the bilingual front desk receptionist at Liberty Collegiate Academy in Nashville. She has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and geography from the University of Georgia.

Most recently, Aimee was a test administrator for Pearson Professional Centers in Brentwood. She has a bachelor’s degree in Japanese from Ball State University in Indiana.

Spanish For Educators Receives VP Citation

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TLC is proud of the Spanish for Educators program created by the World Languages team for receiving the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Public Service Vice Presidential Citation. This award recognizes a special effort by staff members who go above and beyond normal job assignments or have worked relentlessly on a complex project. Congratulations to Brian Barnett, Jack Willey, Maya Campbell, and Stasie Harrington for their work on creating this course.

Spanish for Educators was created for  K-12 teachers, school staff, and administrators with very little to no previous Spanish study to develop cultural understanding and a basic repertoire of conversation skills to engage with Spanish speakers in their schools and local communities. It is offered four times a year. Contact worldlanguages@tennessee.edu for more information. 

black graduation hat with gold tassel resting on several thick books with rolled up diploma in front

Summer TESL Class Graduates

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Congratulations to the graduates of our Summer Class of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL)! Each student completed 150 course hours in this online program. This is the 61st TESL class that has graduated at TLC. Great job!

 

Screengrab with the words Congratulations TESL 61 and six small windows of Zoom participants showing

Registration is Open for Fall Term!

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Fall Enrollment is here!

Register before Sept. 26 for our Early Bird 10% discount (use code EARLYFA22 at checkout).

Find out what our current students already know – our classes are awesome! We hope you will join us.

Browse our classes or register. 

View classes by language.

View classes by day of the week. 

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Amanda Shappard Joins TLC as New Fiscal Director

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Amanda Shappard is the new fiscal director for the Tennessee Language Center. She was previously an accountant for Williamson County government for 8 years. Amanda has a bachelor’s in accounting from Tennessee Tech and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in public administration from Murray State University. She’s earned the Certified County Finance Officer and the Certified Public Administrator designations from the County Technical Assistance Service, an agency of the University of Tennessee’s Institute for Public Service.