Recycling is good. It's a "green" solution that most of us have accepted as an effort to save our shrinking planet. Nevertheless, the shrinking number of available competent localization specialists is not a good thing, and recycling limited personnel by pursuing predatory hiring strategies isn't sound practice for the ecological health of the localization industry either. Last summer's LEIT (LISA Education Initiative Taskforce) survey revealed not only a voracious demand for new blood, but also a deficit in new graduates entering the field. The trend continues - hits on the major industry job search website Dice.com for the keyword "localization" have now burgeoned to 4,885 (June 29 1999), up from the 3,000+ range in the spring of this year, and 1,925 in October, 1998. Moreover, those people who do graduate with degrees in computer science, technical writing, and translation have in many cases not been exposed to key skills that are critical to their futures in internationalization and localization. Those few who are trained appropriately are snapped up almost immediately - which is great for graduates, but discouraging for potential employers.

In an effort to address these training gaps, LEIT will hold its first "Training the Trainers" workshop on September 19 and 20 at the Doubletree Hotel in Monterey, California. The target audience for the workshop will include potential "trainers" who are planning to develop their own localization (L10N) training programs and who wish to get an overview of existing programs and approaches being adopted, either in industry or in academic settings. The workshop will also address issues that may also appeal to newcomers themselves who are interested in talking to trainers and learning where they can best meet their needs for localization training. Industry personnel managers seeking ideas on how to structure their in-house training programs can also benefit from the program. For the latest details and registration information, interested readers are urged to check the LISA workshops website:
http://www.lisa.unige.ch/99monterey_wsindex.html

Academic programs

The position of L10N training within the overall translator and language technology curriculum is a major concern. One forward-thinking colleague reported recently that after having advised a European translator trainer to introduce L10N skills into his courseware mix, the irritated professor replied, "Young man [although the colleague is hardly wet behind the ears], I have been teaching translators for the last twenty years. Don't try to tell me what needs to be included in a translation curriculum!"

This incident speaks for a fair number of translation and language-related teachers, not to mention an overwhelming number of professors in business and computer science, who are just as disinterested in talking about internationalization and multilingual, multicultural concerns as their translation colleagues are in addressing problems involving computerization and L10N issues. By the same token, those individuals who have opened their eyes to the needs of the L10N market need substantial support in order to structure programs that will measure up to real market requirements. Training activists see a general need to:

• develop sample courseware and curricula for L10N, I18N, and project management
• exchange information with like-minded professionals
• establish general criteria for self-certification of programs
• work together to produce useful training resources
• establish close contacts with representatives of state-of-the-art tools developers.

At the same time, human resources managers in companies are faced with the need to develop strategies for keeping up with training issues in a constantly evolving industry and for meeting the needs of multilingual, multicultural personnel distributed throughout worldwide corporate organizations. Individual professionals, particularly freelance translators and technical writers, also need to identify the most effective programs they can draw on to upgrade their skills on a regular basis. Virtually everyone in the training environment shares common concerns with respect to the definition of human-oriented training strategies and the development of criteria for training content and methodology.

The goal of the LEIT workshop is to present a content-laden package of presentations that will address these issues, but it is not designed to provide all the answers to the various topics that will be addressed. "We certainly aren't in the business of competing with specific, content-oriented training programs and other LISA workshops," says LISA Business Manager and LEIT catalyst Alison Rowles. Independent consultant/trainer Bjorn Austraat echoes her views, "The need in industry is so great no one needs to feel threatened by an expanding the number of training options."

The presenters represent a cross-section of experienced trainers from industry and academia, as well as a selected group of tool developers who have shown their enthusiasm for supporting training efforts in the localization industry. Industry trainers will include both in-house training managers and independent consultants specializing in L10N education.

On the university side of the issue, the presenters will examine a new proposed curricular outline that evolved in the EU LETRAC project (Language Engineering Translators Curricula) and will sort out those aspects of what is essentially a program in language technology that will be most useful for localizers. Course content and general approach will be addressed for the Universities of Geneva, Washington (Seattle) and Kent, as well as for the Monterey Institute, highlighting the need for flexible programs designed to address different needs in different target audiences and different locales. (Presenters: Susan Armstrong, Geneva; Ulrike Irmler, U-W; and Sue Ellen Wright, KSU). Berlitz's Tracey Feick and Simultrans' Adam Jones will address different approaches to continuing education and skills development within the industry itself, while independent consultant/trainer Bjorn Austraat will focus on human and ergonomic issues that can either impede or enhance learning.

One of the most pressing concerns that academics have in setting up practical programs is access to the same state-of-the-art computer programs that students will have to know how to use when they enter the localization market. Four companies that have demonstrated their active support of training programs will be represented at the workshop: TRADOS, STAR, LOGOS, and Corel.

A variety of other curricular issues that are likely to be addressed include:

• the documentation life cycle and project management
• task definition and types of resources involved
• internationalization, enabling technology, and cultural concerns
• strategies for dealing with Asian languages and other aspects of L10N in non-European environments
• methodologies for teaching L10N tools and principles
• strategies for establishing links between industry and academia
• economic constraints in academia
• strategies for reaching prospective students at all levels

Discussions held at the Kent State University "Language in Business/Language as Business conference" in October 1998 focused on the relative desirability of certification standards in the industry. Although the university representatives present at that LEIT-sponsored forum continue to show great interest in the progress being made in Ireland towards certification standards, the general consensus was that the discipline is too young and too subject to abrupt change to propose a standard curriculum or to support the notion of "model" courseware, at least not at a highly detailed level. Kent's Greg Shreve noted, "We came out of that meeting with a general agreement that what we could live with would be some sort of general LISA guidelines associated with a kind of self-certification statement, where training programs could declare that their curriculum is designed to meet a defined subset of LISA objectives." The workshop will feature a panel designed to explore strategies for defining these objectives.

The number of attendees is limited to 40, and there are a limited number of lower-price hotel rooms for people participating in the workshop. This is a popular time to be in Monterey, so it is highly recommended for participants to register early for the workshop and for hotel space.

Late-breaking news from the training scene

Efforts are underway at the University of Washington, Seattle to launch a localization certificate program as early as the fall of 2000. The current plan is to begin with a core experimental course that will draw on expertise present in the university in such departments as the Business School, Library and Information Science, and the various language-related departments. The planning group is working with LEIT and LISA to explore desirable curricular content for inclusion in the program. An initial course offering will cover a broad range of I18N and L10N issues and will be targeted at advanced undergraduates and graduates in the cited departments, with emphasis on the desirability of having a core course built around the expertise of industry specialists from the Puget Sound region.

The prospect of teaching L10N applications within the precincts of one of the great traditional literature-oriented language programs is intriguing for many in the field. Ulrike Irmler, who actually started out as a literature student in the prestigious U-W Department of German, attests: "As a humanities graduate I am especially glad that the localization field is moving into the educational sector. It is an exciting interdisciplinary field that offers great opportunities to humanities students whose outlook on the job market has become exceedingly bleak. I have personally found it a wonderful, rewarding field with lots of challenges and have not regretted my decision to take a job in the localization industry [i.e., as German terminologist at Microsoft] in the least. I also find that the problem solving and research skills that I have gained from a solid education in the humanities have been a great asset. I believe that the localization industry and the educational sector can benefit from each other tremendously: a localized product is the result of applied interdisciplinary work, a university like the University of Washington offers all the involved fields and now has the opportunity to draw them together."