#374 – Lost in Translation: Rethinking Language Tools in Education, with Rena Clark

In this episode, Rena Clark, an Instructional Technology Facilitator and one of our Unpacking Education podcast cohosts, shares insights from the work that she’s currently engaged in with language acquisition and translation tools. She discusses how the overreliance on translation tools in education can inadvertently hinder language acquisition and literacy. While she says that there’s a time and place for translation tools in schools, it’s important to recognize that these tools can also increase cognitive load and communicate translations inaccurately. Rena emphasizes the importance of intentional, small-dose use of translation tools and advocates for good teaching practices, such as visual aids, simplified language, and peer support. She suggests empowering students to use translation tools responsibly and leveraging AI for better translations.

How are you making your lesson accessible to all the students in the room?

From “Guidelines for Use of Translation Tools in ASD [Auburn School District] Schools”

Resources

The following resources are available from AVID and on AVID Open Access to explore related topics in more depth:

• Enhance Language Learning With Technology (article)
• ReadM, with Oren Farhi and Dr. Hope Blecher (podcast episode)
• Empower Students With Accessibility Tools (article)
• Canva, a Versatile Multimedia Creation Tool (ed tip)

A Time and a Place

Translation tools are becoming more common in classrooms, but they are not always the best solution. While these tools can bridge immediate communication gaps, Rena warns against overreliance, comparing them to a Band-Aid—helpful in the moment but not a long-term fix. “There’s always a time and a place,” she says, emphasizing the importance of best practices, relationship building, and instructional strategies that support all learners. Tune in as we rethink the role of language tools in education and explore strategies for fostering meaningful language learning. The following are a few highlights from the episode:

• About Rena: Rena Clark is an Instructional Technology Facilitator for Auburn School District (ASD) in Washington State, supporting all of the high schools in the district. Previously, she has been an elementary and middle school digital learning expert and STEM facilitator. Recently, she has been training staff about best practices using translation tools.
• About Auburn School District: Rena describes Auburn School District as a medium-/large-sized district of around 20,000 students. About 25%–30% of the students are classified as English language learners, or multilingual students. However, over 40% of students in the district speak a language other than English in their homes. She shares that there are over 80 different languages spoken by students in the district, presenting a unique challenge for teachers in the classroom.
• Increased Use: Rena notes that her district leadership has noticed a significant increase in the use of translation tools. Contributing factors appear to be shifting demographics and an increased access to technology. Rena points out, “Many translation tools offer quick translations in multiple languages.” These tools make it appealing to teachers who need to meet diverse language needs. She says, “They serve as an immediate way to try to bridge that gap—that language gap—so they can be very helpful with some communication with students and families, and they can help us bridge the language gap.”
• Band-Aid: Rena compares the use of translation tools to applying a Band-Aid to a cut. She says, “A Band-Aid is a quick fix. You slap on that Band-Aid real quick. However, Band-Aids are not made to last. They fall off. I might really only care that it looks like bacon or has Hello Kitty on it, and it might be covering up a much deeper problem.” She adds, “There is a time and place for a Band-Aid, but we need to be mindful of overusing Band-Aids and forgetting to take them off.”
• New Information: Many teachers have not received training on the use of translation tools. Rena admits this about her own experience, saying, “I’m going to be honest: When I first started this, I was unaware because we don’t know what we don’t know.”
• Cognitive Load: Using translation tools is generally well intended, but it can have unintended consequences, such as an increase in cognitive load for multilingual students. This stems from a variety of factors, including the fact that most multilingual students don’t have literacy skills in their home language. Rena says, “Presenting information to our students in more than one language can actually increase the cognitive load for students.” By needing to learn vocabulary in two languages, the cognitive load is doubled for those students. Rena says that this added stress “can really impact motivation and self-worth.”
• Inaccuracy: Another concern with translation tools is that machine translation is often inaccurate. Rena says, “They provide inaccurate translations, especially with high-context languages—so Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic, Dari.”
• Building Empathy: One way to build empathy for language learners is to have all students experience a translation tool. Teachers can have students use a tool to translate a passage from another language into their own. This, Rena explains, can help students “see the inaccuracy of translation tools and what it might feel like to be on the receiving side.”
• More Inaccuracy: Inaccurate use of translators often goes unchecked. Because teachers are translating text into languages that they may not know themselves, they are unable to confirm the accuracy of those translations. Rena says, “If a teacher is speaking to a class, and they’re having live translation or translating slides . . . they don’t really know what is being said. They can’t monitor the messaging. They can’t tell if it’s accurate or appropriate.”
• A Decline in Best Practices: Rena says, “My biggest concern is that when we over-rely on translation tools, we discourage best practices. We’ve seen that teachers who rely on translation tools as their main way to provide accommodations aren’t using great strategies and best practice.” In some ways, the translation tools become the easy button, rather than the best approach to language acquisition and support.
• A Time and a Place: Rena is not advocating for translation tools to never be used. In fact, she says, “There’s always a time and a place.” That said, she encourages listeners to use these tools “in small doses.” Rather than translating a whole passage, teachers might consider translating only key words or short phrases as scaffolds for the students.
• Gradual Release: Rena suggests, “As we continue to progress, we don’t just keep translating. We add in good teaching methods, and then have those little supports.”
• Relationships First: “Relationships always trump learning in a lot of ways,” says Rena. A solid foundation of relationships opens up powerful teaching strategies and learning opportunities. Strong relationships make it easier to empower students to take ownership in their learning because there is a foundation of trust.
• Best Practices First: Rena believes that strong instructional practices should be the first priority. She says, “They’re good for everyone. They’re especially good for multilingual or multi-language learners.” Some of these practices include using visual aids, such as images, diagrams, charts, and video. It might include having anchor charts that can be referenced. It also means avoiding jargon and providing videos with subtitles for students to watch and rewatch.
• An Assist From AI: Teachers might lean on AI to brainstorm instructional strategies for use with language learners. When using AI for this purpose, Rena suggests fashioning prompts that include phrases like “without using digital translation tools.” She says that this will give you “good instructional teaching practices that are good for everyone” and are not dependent on translation tools.
• Newsletters: Rena shares some best practices for sending out newsletters. She says, “Make sure that you include a cover page with a disclaimer about the limitations of machine translation and contact details for interpreters.” She adds, “And then, you always should include the English version as well.” The English version gives families an opportunity to use the translation tool of their choice. Other tips from Rena include using plain text, simple language, and PDFs that have not been flattened, as flattened PDFs cannot be read by translation tools.
• Intentionality: It’s important for us not to assume that students know how to effectively use digital tools, such as translators. Rather, Rena says, it’s helpful to “take the 5 minutes, take the 10 minutes to intentionally teach all students, not just single out those students that might need it, but teach all students how they might use some of the tools that you have access to.”
• Family Support: If you have the resources to do it, it’s helpful to provide training for families as well. This can allow them to support their children at home and also to access English content and school communication themselves.
• Toolkit: Rena’s toolkit item is to support learning with visuals. She suggests Canva and Adobe Express as tools that can be used to create them. Both tools offer many templates that can be adapted. She says, “I love using Canva. You can use it for storyboard creation or mind mapping—all of those things that are good for everybody but can be really helpful for our multilingual students.”
• One Thing: Rena shares how impactful it can be to get input from students. Ask them what works best for them. Rena had a chance to experience this herself and says that it was “one of the most powerful and engaging professional learning [experiences] that we did the entire year.”