As we continue to be more linguistically and culturally diverse, providing services to customers in their preferred language to meet their needs becomes a necessity. As many as 75 percent of consumers say they’re more likely to purchase a product if customer support is provided in their preferred language. More than half would spend more […]
Continue readingHow Language Testing Serves Both the Employer and the Employees
Language Testing International (LTI) helps many of its corporate clients implement language assessments for their job candidates and employees. At first glance, one might assume that these third-party language assessments are only designed to help LTI’s clients, the employers, and not necessarily designed with the job candidates or employees’ benefit in mind. However, at LTI, […]
Continue readingWhat should the standard be for language assessments?
Do companies need a language testing assessment partner, or can they develop and administer their own assessments in-house? What are the repercussions to attempting a homegrown assessment? If a company does choose to hire a language assessment partner, how would that company know they are choosing the right vendor? At Language Testing International (LTI), these […]
Continue readingConsistency and Bias in Assessing Language Proficiency
Assessments in the workplace are aimed at identifying what skills and knowledge, acquired over time, a person can bring to the table. This also includes language assessments. Language is something you can study in school and get a degree for. However, to measure what a job candidate can do with language, the employer needs fair […]
Continue readingThe Internal and External Role of Language Proficiency in Business
Every organization has four primary audiences, whether they are in the private, public, or nonprofit sectors. They are their internal team (i.e., staff, leadership, stakeholders, board of directors, investors, etc.), their consumers, their vendors, and the community at large. Depending on the industry and the products or services that the organization provides, the internal and […]
Continue readingLinguistic and Cultural Proficiency Is Critical in Mitigating Healthcare Disparities
In 2009, I went to a business networking luncheon. The Marketing Director of a major hospital campus in my neighborhood told me to scoot over in a booth I was sitting at because she wanted to sit next to me to talk. She had heard that my company specializes in multicultural marketing and maybe, just […]
Continue readingCultural Competence and Linguistic Proficiency Where You Work, Live, and Play
As the owner of a Strategic Marketing and Business Development firm that specializes in multicultural markets, I am constantly looking for ways to better serve our clients. Corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors often struggle with understanding where to start with their multicultural efforts and still be cost-efficient and effective. Thankfully, my experience working for Spanish-language […]
Continue readingAccess to Employment with English as a New Language
At Language Testing International (LTI), we’ve seen countless examples of how learning a new language can unleash a world of new possibilities and opportunities, for individuals and for businesses. Focusing on business opportunities, people are often unaware that learning a new language can lead to career advancement within certain job roles, or it can lead […]
Continue readingProviding English to Speakers of Other Languages Goes Beyond Language
Most people would agree that learning a new language is an invaluable skillset. At Language Testing International (LTI), we know that learning a new language may be done at a leisurely pace for personal pleasure or career advancement, however, there are many individuals who must learn a new language to survive when they migrate to […]
Continue readingRemoving the Training Wheels from Language Learning
The decision to learn a second language is no easy undertaking. It is in our human nature to want to rely on what is most comfortable to us as we embark on a task that seems daunting. However, studies show that humans learn new skills much faster when we remove all the comforts of the […]
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