ROGERS - Rob Brothers, president of Arvest Bank, has added a standing appointment to his weekly schedule.
Once a week, Brothers attends a basic Spanish language class with a group of other professional adults at Larson's Language Center, 1730 W. Poplar St.
Fueled by a close relationship with a South American family and a desire to better relate to Spanish-speaking clients, Brothers enrolled in the class earlier this fall. He said the experience can be both challenging and rewarding.
"I think trying to learn the language gives insight into other cultures, and it can be a good business move," he said.
Brothers hopes his efforts will be an example for Arvest employees. He joins a growing trend of adults learning basic language skills for business reasons.
U. S. Census figures show quick growth in northwest Arkansas' Hispanic population. Benton County's Hispanic population grew more than 75 percent between 2001 and 2005, rising from 13, 469 to 23, 876. In Arkansas as a whole, rates of growth in the Hispanic population dwarfed general growth rates. Hispanic population figures grew by nearly 50 percent, while the whole population grew less than 2 percent.
While many of the area's Hispanic residents are bilingual, some are still learning English, and a growing core of people in professional and service organizations are driven to confront existing language barriers.
Lorena Larson is the director of Larson's Language Center, which offers language-immersion classes for children and adults in five different languages. The center is one of a small number of private language-learning opportunities in Benton County. A recent boost in enrollment has paved the way for Larson to hire a new Spanish instructor.
Larson's adult classes draw people from all areas of the professional spectrum, including real estate agents, police officers, doctors and nurses. She also teaches classes in corporate offices. Her students aren't always seeking perfect fluency, she said.
"They're not fluent, but they can carry on a bit of a conversation," she said.
A few key phrases and the skill of basic question asking can smooth professional relationships and put Spanish-speaking clients at ease, Larson said.
Larson, who moved to the United States from Ecuador nine years ago, said the experience of learning a new language is stretching.
"You don't understand how frustrating it is until you've done it," she said.
Kim Purdy, program manager of institutional research at Northwest Arkansas Community College, said enrollment in traditional Spanish classes has increased about 60 percent since 2001.
At the Shewmaker Center for Workforce Technologies, the college also offers not-for-credit classes tailored for specific vocational needs. The 18-hour classes focus on specific vocabulary needs for bankers, real estate agents, customer-service employees, health-care professionals, homebuilders and contractors.
Joell King is a cardiac nurse at Northwest Medical Center. Hospital employees can use red phones placed throughout the building's corridors to request help from interpreters, but King said she was frustrated by her own inability to communicate. The anxiety of medical procedures can make language barriers more of an obstacle, she said. In the recovery room, where King deals with patients as they awake from surgical procedures, a little bit of Spanish goes a long way.
"Before, I couldn't even talk to them and ask them where the pain was," she said. "I just had to do the best that I could."
King believes people should learn English, but she recognizes it can be a long process.
"You have to communicate to encourage it," she said.
Lt. Mike Johnson, a spokesman for the Rogers Police Department, said the department offers weeklong "Survival Spanish "classes that enable officers to ask basic questions and give simple verbal directions.
The department uses a language line, an emergency phone number that gives direct access for interpreters. Dispatchers usually indicate a language barrier to officers, and bilingual staff is available to interpret in critical situations. The department offers a small hourly pay incentive for employees fluent in Spanish who can act as interpreters. Still, some officers choose to pursue additional language training - not seeking fluency, but in an effort to build comfortable relations with Spanish-speaking members of the public.
"The more that you can learn, the more efficient you can be at your profession," Johnson said.
Brothers said it would be difficult to become proficient enough at the language to handle every element of professional conversation. As the community has grown and changed, Arvest Bank has attempted to reflect the changes through its hiring process. Bilingual employees account for nearly one-fourth of personnel, he said.
"We figured out a long time ago that someone that speaks Spanish can become a banker a lot quicker than you can teach a banker to speak Spanish," he said.
Even without full fluency in Spanish, Brothers is glad that he has made the effort to learn. The experience has made him more understanding of the languagelearning process.
Larson said flexible attitudes will be necessary as the face of northwest Arkansas continues to change.
"America is built with immigrants," she said. "(People ) can't just close their eyes and pretend this isn't happening."
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