Posts

Four women standing in distillery lobby

TLC Provides Portuguese Interpreters for Company Celebration

Portobello America, a Brazilian-owned porcelain and ceramic tiles company, celebrated the grand opening of its U.S. headquarters and first production facility in Baxter, TN. TLC provided Portuguese interpreters for the leaders, managers, and stakeholders from Brazil for the several-day celebration. We provided interpreters for Nashville trolley tours on Friday, the grand opening celebration and event in Baxter on Saturday, and a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery on Sunday.

Woman in business attire standing next to a sign for the Equal Justice University

TLC Presents at Equal Justice University Conference

TLC Project Manager Genna Linton presented “The Intersection of Law and Interpretation within Special Education” at the Equal Justice University Conference held Aug. 30 in Murfreesboro. The annual event is sponsored by the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services. TALS’s mission is to strengthen the delivery of civil legal help to vulnerable Tennesseans.

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TLC Presents at Inaugural AAITE Conference

TLC’s Training Specialist Richard Ponce de Leon and Project Manager Genna Linton recently presented at the inaugural AAITE Edu-Con in Denver. AAITE is the American Association of Interpreters and Translators in Education, a non-profit professional association for interpreters and translators who work in educational settings, along with interested stakeholders and other allies.

They presented “Filling the Gaps: A Case Study in Educational Interpreter Training” based on the 4-session training that TLC conducted for interpreters employed by Metro Nashville Public Schools last year.

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TLC Presents Spanish for Medical Professionals

TLC’s Genna Linton presented a 4-hour long training to 30 nurses at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The course, “Spanish for Medical Professionals: A Linguistic and Cultural Toolkit,” was focused on words, phrases, and cultural norms to help non-Spanish speaking nurses better relate to non-English speaking patients. This will potentially impact hundreds of patients working with these nurses. Just being able to ask if they are in pain or if they need water in the language the patient understands will improve the quality of care they are receiving.

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

New Medical Interpreting Students Graduate

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

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.

TLC Adds Two New Project Managers

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.

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

27 Complete Summer Court Interpreter Workshop

The Tennessee Language Center’s Summer Court Interpreter Workshop had 27 participants from 16 different counties and two states (TN and MS). Our students included a Metro Nashville Police Department officer who wanted to improve his interpreting skills in order to better assist the Hispanic community he serves, an Afghan refugee currently working as a Dari interpreter in community settings who wanted to expand his services to the legal field, and a polyglot African student who speaks English, Swahili, French, and Portuguese, who also wanted to take his interpreting skills to the next level. TLC’s Court Interpreter Workshop is an approved training program for court interpreters in the state of Tennessee consisting of 14 hours of training on the Tennessee court system, ethics and standards of practice, and interpreting skills.

 

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3 New Project Managers Join ITS Team

We are so excited to welcome three new Project Managers to our Interpretation and Translation Department. ITS Project Managers serve as the point of contact external clients for interpretation and/or translation projects.

Headshot of woman with long curly hair Eileen Bernstein has served as a translator with TLC since 2020. She has a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of New Hampshire and a master’s degree in political science from George Washington University.

Headshot of a woman in blue shirt with dark hairMahasweta Panigrahy has most recently worked as an early learning project coordinator at First Presbyterian Preschool in Franklin. Mahasweta holds degrees from Berhampur (India) University and the University of the Cumberlands.

Headshot of a woman with dark short hair and glassesAdrian McDaniel is a former program manager for International Scholarship and Tuition Services Inc. Adrian holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations with minors in French and Spanish from Middle Tennessee State University; as well as a master’s in international business from Southern New Hampshire University.

Welcome, Eileen, Mahasweta and Adrian!

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TLC Provides Interpretation for TIMES Reporter Doing COVID-19 Article

TLC Project Manager and Interpreter Richard Ponce de Leon assisted TIME Magazine journalist Abigail Abrams interview six Spanish-speaking migrant workers in East Tennessee. Abrams was writing an article on COVID-19 vaccine rollout across the nation. The workers harvest and process tomatoes at Jones & Church Farm in Unicoi, Tennessee.

Read the published article here.