Imagine working in a place where no one understands you and every word you said was met with a blank stare. That is what many non-English speaking kitchen workers deal with each day.
The Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management have begun a study that measures attitudes about individuals who don’t speak English. This study examines ways to change negative attitudes, as well as finding a way to eliminate language barriers in the kitchen.
Students who participate in the study, called ‘Empathy in the Kitchen,’ are asked to prepare meals in silence, using only body and hand gestures.
Assistant professor and researcher Jay Neal said the study began as a team building exercise in his classroom about two to three years ago.
‘I came up with the idea to teach empathy in the classroom, and have students cook in silence so they could see that they won’t spontaneously combust,’ he said. ‘They really thought they would. Restaurants students are very loquacious. They talk a lot.’
With the help of assistant professor Juan Madera, the exercise developed into a study, in which 96 students in a Food Service Production and Operations class participated. The study began by asking students to take a survey that measured their attitudes toward non-English speakers. At the end of the study, the students were surveyed again, but the second survey revealed different results.
‘The kitchen managers stated that they now realized how frustrating, lonely and stressful it is to work in an environment where you cannot communicate,’ assistant professor Mary Dawson said in a press release. ‘Our results suggest that empathy training can positively affect individual attitudes toward non-English speakers.’
Neal said the study is important because it helped participants appreciate what non-English workers experience. Plus, it could help break language barriers.
‘As future kitchen managers, it’s very likely that many kitchen workers will not speak English as a first language,’ Neal said. ‘If a worker without English is underutilized because he cannot communicate with managers, and vice versa, he may feel alienated and eventually leave. We hope this exercise gives these future manager tools to communicate despite language barriers.’
Madera said this study helps participants in both a professional and emotional manner.
‘I don’t think people really understand somebody that is different from them until they walk in their shoes, and this is a great way to do that,’ Madera said. ‘The process in which they don’t talk lasted an hour. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it opens your eyes to what it’s like to be someone who is isolated and struggles to understand others and wanting to say something but they won’t be understood.’
The biggest question remaining is whether this study can also help non-English speakers better understand English speakers’ emotions. This situation could arise when the English speaker is one of a few, or the only, English-speaking person in the kitchen.
The researchers hope the exercise can be incorporated into the current curriculum at the college and offered to industry leaders as a team building and training exercise.
Addition reporting by Shaista Mohammed
