Many restaurateurs say traditional English as a Second Language (ESL) classes fall far short of their business needs.
The cornerstone of the NRAEF initiative is the "language huddle" -- a series of short daily language lessons given to small groups of non-English-speaking employees at the workplace by one of their peers, said Nathan Johnson, project manager for Daily Dose Language System Inc. of Salt Lake City, which partnered with NRAEF to develop course materials.
Each lesson is built around a theme, and each of the 52 modules can be taught in about 10 minutes, Johnson said. Lessons cover such topics as hand-washing, food expiration dates, greeting customers and handling customer requests for condiments.
"We're trying to make the classes fun and interactive," Johnson said. "It's not just verbs, conjugations and all those boring things you learn in school."
The Westminster store, which began offering Daily Dose classes to workers five months ago, is one of 20 Dunkin' Donuts establishments around the country piloting the program.
To lead the huddles, Javia turned to Darshi Patel, an ambitious 19-year-old part-time employee and community college student who moved to the United States from India six years ago. For about a half-hour each day, workers alternate between spending time with Patel in the huddle and practicing what they've learned by waiting on customers.
"They've been learning so well," Patel said of her co-worker pupils. "I will point to something like paper towels and I'll be like, 'What's this called?' and then they'll tell me."
Shawn Brady, human resources director for Harman Management Corp., a large KFC franchisee that has been using Daily Dose in western states for two years, credits the program for motivating some of his most disaffected employees.
"It really gets the workers' interest up," he said. "When I saw these 30-year-old cooks sitting down on bags of flour in the back getting interested in learning English, I had a huge emotional reaction."
Daily Dose is what Kevin McNamara, vice president of franchises for Allied Domecq, the parent company for Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Togos, calls a "low- tech" approach to language training. In addition, the company plans to install computers that access English tutorial programs in all Dunkin' Donuts establishments.
"You wouldn't normally think of a Dunkin' Donuts store as a center of high-tech learning," he said. "But I see this as something we offer on an ongoing basis. This is not a flavor-of-the-month program."
At Marriott, ESL is still taught the old-fashioned way. At times, the company has hired instructors to teach at various properties, keeping workers on the clock while they attend class. Workers who opt to take ESL classes off-site can receive tuition reimbursement.
Ortuna, a native of Bolivia who knew little English when he began at the hotel as a housekeeper 13 years ago, said that's how he mastered the language and rose into management.
Ortuna remembers what it was like when he couldn't understand what his English-speaking co-workers were saying. "It made me feel like I didn't fit in, like I didn't belong," he said. "But now I do." Memories of these outsider feelings make Ortuna favor the Marriott policy of discouraging worker chat in languages other than English in front of guests.
