Tri-Lingual Open Space Facilitation

[Larry Peterson]

Debbie:

I've led OS events in multi-lingual situations, although never Opened it
with three languages going, but two. After the Opening, I find that people
will put up topics in all three languages or at least have conversations in
them. However, others will be drawn into a conversation because they have
an idea of the topic and most groups will work out the translation on their
own. They will do it for each other. Having headsets and full simultaneous
translation in the discussion groups would not work.

The nature of report writing might be a trick. You will need computers that
speak 3 languages. I have had groups translate reports in two languages
after the event was over so that all could read the others reports. It does
cause some problem with convergence. If you want people to act on what has
emerged then special attention will need to be paid to the reporting.

Larry

Larry Peterson
Associates in Transformation
41 Appleton Ave., Toronto, ON,
Canada, M6E 3A4
Tel:/Fax: 416-653-4829

lpasoc at inforamp.net
http://www.inforamp.net/~lpasoc