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[E. Tomasik] The way I first got interested in languages is my dad has always worked for
Japanese companies. I was born in Tokyo, Japan, and from then, I never left that Japanese
spirit. We spoke Japanese a little bit at home, but it was just kind of part of our
life; it was part of the culture and language. My dad always took us overseas when he traveled,
and we were just taught to eat different things, speak different ways even though we kind of
grew up in most Midwestern areas that maybe weren’t so culturally diverse.
I first began with the Language Training Center about three, three and a half years ago, and
I had met one of their past teachers just out at a coffee shop, and so we started talking,
and he was telling me about the Language Training Center and the amazing things they are doing
in the city, and that got me really excited, so I contacted them.
I started first doing some Japanese things with them just as a sub-contracted teacher,
and then got into English, and then about a year and half ago, I started to manage the
Language Training Department, train the teachers, help with students, things like that.
A lot of the fields that we work with are, we do a lot of medical industry; we do a lot
of law; I’m trying to think what else, hardware manufacturing, a lot of the new electrical
cars, the new industries that are going on in China and Japan with the different manufacturing
of cars; we do steel. I mean, we’ve touched a lot of different industries.
We do a lot with other factories as well, factories that work with making hospital products,
and so a lot of our teachers have to learn a lot, and so when we hire new teachers, we’re
not only looking for teachers, who’s good at teaching English, but is very teachable
because they have to read the entire website of the company they are going to first, and
then, they’ve got to read articles online and get into that industry and not only that
industry, but if they’re teaching someone in making mattresses for the hospital industry,
not only do they have to learn about that, but they have to learn about that person’s
field, so are they in sales? Are they in product development? We really have to help them,
so we do a lot of trainings with our teachers, and so that’s the kind of person we’re
always looking for is someone who’s really teachable because it’s a different industry.
It’s called ESP, English for Specific Purposes, and so every class we teach is different.
This industry of not only teaching languages, but interpreting, translating, I think it
will be constantly changing because as the world’s needs change for English, it will
be changing. Before, I think language training was like a huge need, now it is still a huge
need, but now the U.S., as we bring in more refugees, more immigrants, interpreting is
huge, and the government gives standards that they have to have so many medical testing
and things like that, and so, a large percent of our interpreting is for the Burmese people,
and that wasn’t so three years ago, so as the needs of the world change, we’re changing,
so it’s a fun and dynamic way of having a company.
We don’t set the standards; we’re kind of following those, but we’re also pushing
companies to go more, so don’t just get interpreting for your company, but get language
training. You really need to train your employees. You need to build into them that if they learn
other languages, then they can be going across countries, and you’re not going to need
this phone interpreter anymore, which having a phone interpreter is not bad, but we really
want those cultures to understand how important it is, so yeah, it’s an always changing
market.