Espanol for Law Enforcement: An Interactive Training Tool

• NCJ Number: 201801
• Date Published: July 2007
• Length: 0 pages
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Instructional Material

Annotation

This online training guides users through a course whose objective is to provide the student with a working knowledge of the Spanish language and apply this knowledge to scenarios that involve interviews, crime scenes, motor vehicles, and domestic violence.

Abstract

That portion of the course that provides a basic knowledge of Spanish addresses letters, numbers, days of the week, months, seasons, expressions of time, colors, helpful words and phrases, and courteous expressions. The other components of the course instruct the student in phonetic spelling, English translation, and the pronunciation of Spanish words and phrases appropriate for and likely to be encountered in scenarios pertinent to various types of interviews, interactions associated with motor-vehicle use, various types of crime scenes, and domestic violence scenarios. The scenarios and settings for interviews with Spanish-speaking persons are a traffic accident, the report of a missing child, and a report of suspicious activity. The two scenarios for interaction with Spanish-speaking persons at a type of “crime scene” are a noise complaint and a burglary. The scenarios for conversational interaction with Spanish-speaking persons in the context of motor vehicle operation are a routine traffic stop, a DUI traffic stop, and a felony traffic stop. For the domestic-violence component of the course, the settings for conversational interaction are an alleged violation of a protective order, a violent disturbance, and a violent disturbance that involves a cross-complaint by the two involved parties. The dialog in each scenario is presented first in Spanish to enable the student to practice recognition of the words without the aid of the English text. The student has the opportunity to answer questions from the dialog at the end of questions. The student has the option of replaying the scenario video with the English text included to assess student performance. Quizzes are provided and can be repeated until a score of 70 percent or above is achieved.