ACADEMY SPOTLIGHT: Jim Lyons recently came to speak to the International Relations & Global Citizenship Academy about translating and interpreting. Jim is a Spanish teacher at Lancaster High School and a certified member of the the American Translators Association (ATA), which is the largest and most important association of translators in the world. Jim became certified in 2003 to translate from Spanish to English and is also NYS certified as a court interpreter.
In 2006, Jim received a Fulbright Award to teach English in Corrientes, Argentina. He traded places with an Argentine teacher who taught Spanish in his place at Lancaster. The teacher exchange program lasted for a year, and his family even got to join him in Argentina.
Jim enjoyed a homecoming of sorts in coming back to speak at St. Mary’s, as his daughter, Ana, graduated from SMHS in 2014.
As Jim said, “I strongly encourage the Spanish students at St Mary’s because even if you don’t become a teacher, translator, or interpreter, knowing a second language will enhance your life in ways that you can’t even imagine.”
