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Spanish for the Professions: Creating an

Intermediate Level Course
Interview Questions:
1. What is your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. Where do you live?
4. What profession do you work
in?
5. What is your official title?
6. How much do you use Spanish
in your work? With whom? For
what?
7. Did knowing Spanish help you
get your job?
8. Tell me about a typical day at
your job.
9. Describe how you got your
current job regarding the job
search process, the interview, etc.
Fernando ❝I am going to tell you that Spanish
helped me in a way perhaps more
informal than formal because I got my
job through connections and
contacts...This person interviewed me
while I was doing my master's degree and
I think that although he knew me little...I
think it felt that we could work well.
Somehow we were like-minded people
who had similar views of things on work
issues. Although that could have
happened in any language, I really feel
Field: Business
Profession: Director of Motor Sports
that the fact that we both spoke Spanish,
Distribution Center and that our mother tongue was Spanish,
From: Colombia
Works in: Portland, OR made us connect much better.❞
Antonio ❝Yes, knowing Spanish helped
me get my job because it is the
language that majority of the
population speaks, most of the
patients here are Mexican or come
from the countries down south. I
feel that it helped me because this
job requested a percentage of
English and Spanish❞
Field: Health
Profession: Registered Nurse
From: Guanajuato, Mexico
Works in: Santiago de
Queretaro,MX

Elaine
Field: Health
Occupation: Registered Nurse
From: Guanajuato, Mexico
Lives in: Santiago de Queretaro,MX
Field: Public Health
Profession: Registered Nurse
From: Salinas,CA
Works for: San Benito County
❝I use Spanish, more than 50% of the people we see
with the Public Health Department and the people
who live in San Benito County speak Spanish.
Before I reached the position where I am...there had
been years since they had a bilingual spokesperson.
There was a large part of the community that we
could not give the education to, or offer the program
because there was no one who spoke Spanish until I
arrived. So Spanish is used with the participants,
customers,... with migrant programs in schools
parents speak Spanish they need someone who can
communicate with them in their language. It is very
important to know Spanish. In San Benito you even
get paid extra for knowing Spanish for being
bilingual all you need to do is take a test and pass so
its a bit extra everytime you get a paycheck❞
 ❝At Cal Poly, I also got minor in Spanish. Although I
María spoke Spanish, I did not know very well how to read and
write, Trying to teach high school math in Spanish I had
to learn a lot of vocabulary because I learned
mathematics in English and I had to teach myself how to
understand the words before teaching the children. After
graduation, I stayed in Cal Poly another year to to receive
my teacher credentials in multiple subjects. I also got my
DCLAP that stands for bilingual authorization which
means that I can teach in Spanish. There I also received
my authorization to teach mathematics. I teach in
Spanish because when I was doing my student teaching I
was in a school that is a dual immersion where they
taught in English and in Spanish it was in San Luis
Obispo called Pacheco and I know that in Salinas there
are many schools that teach in dual immersion. So I had
the idea when I came here to Salinas, when I started
working at WMS. I asked my principal if we could do a
math class in Spanish for students because there are
Field: Education several that come from dual immersion schools and also
Profession: Mathematics Teacher many newcomers who are new to the country and from
From: Salinas,CA there I started teaching mathematics in Spanish❞
Works for: Washington Middle School