[OSList] Tips for working with Translators during Open Space event

[Lisa Heft - via OSList]

Hi, Andrew -

I find that for Open Space, there are times when a skilled translator may be helpful, and times when “whisper translation” amongst fellow participants may be helpful.

I have used a lot of full-group capacity/visibility tricks like putting a colored dot on peoples’ name-tags to tell which of the several top / shared languages at an event each person speaks. 
Sometimes a client has money to pay for a professional simultaneous translator (with or without headphone technology), sometimes they do not. 

If we deconstruct the process of Open Space, there is…

- Opening Circle - where the facilitator explains principles, process, perhaps a few instructions about documentation
...and, as everyone is quietly listening all at once, this time works well for either 
1) a professional translator talking into the headsets of the mono-lingual participants, or 
2) a translator walking around with the facilitator saying these things in Korean just after they say them in the main meeting language.
3) or, as people often arrive and first sit with their friends / language buddies, whisper translation amongst participants can also happen

- Opening Circle is where participants write, announce and post their topic signs, as well
1) If a ‘headset’ translator is working for Opening Circle, they can speak the topics into the Korean participants’ headsets, and can speak in (main conference language) anything a Korean participant wants to announce + post
2) or if there is whisper / buddy translation, someone can come up to the center with the mono-lingual Korean speaker to announce in main conference language after that person first says it in their home (Korean) language

I have also had great clients who have trained a bunch of bi-lingual speakers - non-professionals - participants - for a day in both concepts of the meeting (agriculture, for instance) so they have a glossary of translation terms in their heads - and in Open Space concepts. Those folks might have that colored dot or wear a specific-to-that-color piece of fabric to indicate they are traveling amongst the meeting participants with this language capability, even though they too are participants. These now-trained translators can add that skill to their resumes / cv’s so it brings up the visibility of (for example) community participants as being diversely skilled.

When a client has hired a professional translator, after Opening Circle, they might walk around to the different small groups, but if this colored-dot-on-your-nametag method is used, they are usually waved away by the participants, who have their own capacity by this point. They can look across their own little group and ask a co-participant to translate for them as needed.

In Closing Circle, once again there is silence, where the translation process for Opening Circle can be used again.

For documentation design, if a client has capacity / resources, they can translate the Book of Proceedings - often written in the main language of the conference - into the one next-most-spoken language of the conference (example: Korean). 

And all written materials (Notes-Taker forms, small group participant sign-in sheets, principles posted around the room) can be translated / written in the top two or three most spoken languages of the conference / meeting.

 Of course, the way to know this capacity and language capability is by having participants pre-register to identify whether they are bi-lingual, mono-lingual (in which case someone is often helping them fill out the registration information) or has other resources or capacities.

I’ve done this with groups of hundreds of participants where there are many languages spoken - we have identified the top four-most-spoken languages and resourced translation or made color codes because this was as many as the client could afford to support - and everyone else did just fine with the colored dot system. 

I look forward to hearing what our other colleagues have tried and found to be successful regarding working with groups with two or more languages - specifically when using Open Space.

Thanks for the question,
Lisa

Lisa Heft
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
Opening Space
 

On Feb 22, 2016, at 1:18 PM, Andrew Rixon via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
> I'm helping a client prepare for an Open Space event - 400 people, and within the audience there will be a group of 10-20 koreans who will require a translator.
> 
> I'd love to hear stories and tips on what people have found to work well...
> 
> Warm regards,
> Andrew
>