Spanish or CNA Experience?

[Cronin]

Greetings Everyone,

I am currently in the process of completing the prerequisites for my school's ASN program. Recently, I found out that I will have an entire extra year prior to the program where I will have no prerequisite obligations (I will have finished them). My question for you is, do you think I should use this time to learn a second language or get experience working as a CNA? By the way, I live in California so Spanish would help a great deal.

[BrandonLPN, LPN]

Could you do both?

If you can only do one, I'd say get the CNA experience.

[brownbook]

I vote for the CNA experience. It is so hard to learn a new language as an adult. Maybe if you had the opportunity to live in a Spanish speaking country for a year and could REALLY become fluent that would be as good as CNA experience. Hospitals require you to pass their foreign language fluency test for you to be "certified" as bilingual. However it is good to speak Spanish, there is still a lot you can do as a Spanish speaker even if you can't become certified.

I'd say go for CNA experience and take on-line, or a few hours a week, Spanish classes. My Spanish (I never was good enough to be certified) really improved when I made the effort to use it on the job. I took home routine assessment forms (this was pre computers) and wrote out all the questions in Spanish. My Spanish speaking co-workers really appreciated my effort and helped me. Spanish speaking patients really appreciated my effort also. I learned to say....my Spanish isn't very good, please speak slowly, and of course called a bilingual worker for important, urgent, vital, questions or clarifications.