The University Star – Louis Zylka
“Texas is filled with multilingual people with access to a plethora of opportunities because of their improved communication skills. Gloria Velásquez, senior lecturer in Spanish, said learning a second language will help open the doors for many jobs in the competitive world. “A bilingual person brings to an employer a different asset,” Velásquez said. “A person who is bilingual is going to get more jobs than someone who is not bilingual.” Velásquez said she hears from her students about how speaking Spanish has helped them in their professions. She and her colleague, Alba Melgar, senior lecturer in Spanish, conducted a report on job requirements in the United States. She said there are 60,000 job openings that list knowing an additional language as a requirement…As the economy becomes more globalized, learning to speak another language is becoming a necessity.”(more)