I N T E R V I E W
Localizing to improve western manuals
Vesselina Stoyanova is the executive director of the Bulgarian Environmental Management Training Center, which has a strong tradition of adapting training manuals from the U.S. EPA. She answered some questions about the group's techniques.
BY DIRK AMTSBERG
Can you tell us why and in which way you adapt western training manuals?
With pleasure, but first I have to give a compliment to the EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and other western organizations. Their training manuals by themselves are very good and highly valuable for us. The adaptation to our regional situations is only a method we use to make those manuals even more valuable for Bulgarian participants. Adaptation does not mean that we change EPA manuals totally - so that they are not EPA manuals anymore - but only in certain aspects.
But let me illustrate the whole process of delivering and adapting the manuals.
In general, the EPA delivers the first training on a specific subject in our country. American trainers give the course and there is only a slight adaptation at this stage. Before the course delivery, we translate the manual itself, following the original EPA text very strictly. This is necessary to allow the Americans to deliver the course. But even in this first stage, we make a slight adaptation: We include in the manual the relevant Bulgarian regulations, as well as naming the agencies that deal with the problems detailed in the manual. These additions are not part of the training itself, but they are very useful information for the participants to carry home. One other adaptation we make at this stage is to try to find Bulgarian explanations for English terms.
The second training is different from the first one: Now Bulgarian facilitators, who were identified in the first course, act as co-trainers. While the Americans give the lectures, the Bulgarians oversee the small group work. We also make other changes at this stage. American case studies are replaced with Bulgarian ones. This change ranges from the use of Bulgarian names up to the incorporation of known Bulgarian case studies. We do this because participants prefer to hear something Bulgarian, something familiar. They are not as interested in discussing American problems, but prefer instead to cope with real problems from their daily life. People know these cases and they participate with more interest and get more out of the course this way.
| STEP BY STEP |
When adapting an EPA course for local use, Bulgaria's EMTC follows these steps:
- Initially, the course is given by American trainers, and the manual is not changed in translation, but some local information is added to supplement the material.
- The second time the training is offered, Bulgarian facilitators act as co-trainers and the manual is changed to make the case studies refer to actual cases that occurred in Bulgaria. Adding local cases studies is the biggest, and most important, change that is made in the adaptation process.
- When the course is delivered completely by the Bulgarian EMTC, some material is omitted from the training - but not from the manual. New sections that are valuable for the client may be added.
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So it's a method to help better integrate participants in the course?
That's the whole idea. Participants know the problem, the facilitators are familiar with the problem - and the reactions of the public and the authorities - in short, with all that happened. Also it is more real. Our participants have this desire for reality. They do not feel comfortable with hypothetical or foreign cases. They do not feel comfortable with imaginary cases.
Why do you think real case studies are so important for participants, and therefore for the success of the course?
If the case is not based on reality, people think they are wasting their time. And in a certain way they are. With a hypothetical case, they just spend energy trying to figure out why such a thing would never happen in Bulgaria. You don't have this problem with a real case.
Furthermore, real case studies allow participants to share their knowledge of, and their experience with, the case. Everyone has heard about the case, or knows similar cases or was perhaps even involved in the accident itself. Hence, using real Bulgarian case studies is a method of integrating people more strongly. Our course evaluations confirm this as well. Participants always asked for more case studies, more real examples. They know much of the theory because they are professionals. They are more interested in real examples of their country and especially the solution - right and wrong reactions.
When you adapt the training manuals do you change training methods as well?
No, why should we? The methods are very good. They work very well. We only try to make the courses more Bulgarian in their content and therefore more useful. Participants think that our manuals are very helpful because of all this practical information on Bulgarian regulation and on which government body deals with these things. Participants like the method and think it is a good and effective way to learn something.
What else do you adapt in further deliveries?
When we deliver the course ourselves, we decide to omit certain parts of the training itself - though we leave them in the manual as additional information. We also add new parts that we think might be valuable for our specific clients.
In general, this is all we do in adapting a course and its manual, but sometimes we do more than mere adaptation. We combine different trainings when we find a special need for this. For example, we used to deliver a very technical and practical ETF training and a very theoretical EPA training on Eco-Auditing. Then we found it very useful for our clients to combine these two courses. We called it Advanced-Eco-Auditing training.
Are there any risks involved in combining two manuals?
You always have to be aware of the wants and needs of your clients - what brings them the biggest profit. We know these needs and wants because of our experience in the field, because of our course evaluations, because of the interaction with people themselves and last but not least because of the knowledge and contacts of our board.
When you combine trainings you have to be very careful that you don't cut too much and omit something, or leave in too much and repeat things.
Do you also develop your own manuals?
Yes, we do. We develop courses for the needs that arise. Our trainers or board members sometimes identify new needs based on their daily experiences. As we do not have enough money to finance the development of new manuals, we then look for funding, and after that we start the development. For example, a board member realized that a lot of the small-and-medium-sized firms have problems in registering their products - handling the bureaucracy. They do not know the regulations, the permissions that they need to open a business and so on. So we wrote a training manual on this and taught them with practical examples.
REC * EMTC * PUBLICATIONS * INSIGHT * WINTER 1997
