{"id":19641,"date":"2013-09-17T16:29:58","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T02:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=19641"},"modified":"2020-08-12T14:32:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T00:32:36","slug":"uh-leads-initiative-to-build-states-multilingual-workforce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2013\/09\/17\/uh-leads-initiative-to-build-states-multilingual-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> leads initiative to build state&#8217;s multilingual workforce"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DDysa11tTMM\" title=\"Youtube video player\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span><\/a> is playing a lead role in a major statewide initiative called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nflrc.hawaii.edu\/languageroadmap\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap<\/a>. The ultimate goal is identifying <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8217;s language needs and creating a robust, multilingual workforce to handle those needs. More than 30 languages are already taught at the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lll.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Language, Linguistics and Literature<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have the resources here, we have the expertise here to work with the community, to develop the kinds of programs we need,&rdquo; said <strong>Dina Yoshimi<\/strong>, the program manager for the <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap Initiative and a <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa Japanese language associate professor. <\/p>\n<p>This is not just about tourism, the state&#8217;s number one industry, where multilingual employees have long been in demand. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It goes way beyond the question of tourism,&rdquo; said <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Governor Neil Abercrombie. &ldquo;It goes right to the heart of whether our young people are going to be able to compete and succeed in the 21st century.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_19652\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19652\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/hawaiian-roadmap.jpg\" alt=\"people standing\" width=\"300\" height=\"174\" class=\"size-full wp-image-19652\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/hawaiian-roadmap.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/hawaiian-roadmap-260x150.jpg 260w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19652\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap launch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Representatives from the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>, the business community, state agencies, non-profit organizations, and public and private education attended the official launch event at the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M&#257;noa Kamakak&#363;okalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. <\/p>\n<p>The <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap is based on input from more than a hundred stakeholder groups who participated in the <a href=\"http:\/\/nflrc.hawaii.edu\/languageroadmap\/index.php\/summit\/\"><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Summit<\/a> in March 2013, along with interviews from Neighbor Island stakeholders. Financial institutions were among the many local businesses that participated. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have a shortage actually as it is of people who can speak the various Asian languages because that&#8217;s who comes here a lot, said Betty Brow, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boh.com\">Bank of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span><\/a> Executive Vice President. &ldquo;If people can&#8217;t communicate with us when they come here, eventually, they will not come back.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p>The roadmap also identified a tremendous need for <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> residents who are not fluent in English. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We need people who are able to interact with these people effectively in their language, particularly in high stake interactions&#8212;medical interactions, legal interactions,&rdquo; said Yoshimi. <\/p>\n<p>The <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap outlines initiatives and incentives, policies and partnerships that will enable the state to realize the economic and societal contributions of having a strong, multilingual workforce. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;If <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> is to fulfill its promise destiny of being an anchor of the Pacific, in the Asia Pacific 21st century, then a multi-language <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> is the gateway to success in that century,&rdquo; said Abercrombie. <\/p>\n<p>For more information, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nflrc.hawaii.edu\/languageroadmap\/\">go to the <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap website<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Language Roadmap aims to create a robust multilingual workforce in <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12],"tags":[163,134,9],"class_list":["post-19641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","category-video","tag-college-of-languages-linguistics-and-literature","tag-international","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19641"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125021,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19641\/revisions\/125021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}