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

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• What are the multilingual learning needs in your school district?
• What translation tools are you familiar with?
• What are the benefits of translation tools?
• What are the drawbacks of overusing translation tools?
• What best practices should be considered at times in lieu of translation tools?
• How can you best support the multilingual learners in your classroom and school district?

• Canva (official website)
• Adobe Express (official website)
• Google Translate (official website)
• 10 Evidence-Based Practices for Teaching Multilingual Learners (Jana Echevarria)

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

AVID Open Access
35 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Rena Clark  0:00 
If there’s over dependence on these tools, it can actually discourage students from engaging in the language acquisition process. So rather than practicing listening and speaking and writing in English, we’re now just over relying on translation and not developing those skills or developing the process of decoding and comprehending English text.

Winston Benjamin  0:23 
The topic for today’s podcast is lost in translation, rethinking Language Tools and education, with Rena Clark,

Paul Beckermann  1:44 
I think most educators would agree with the statement. The tricky part is that first word, right? How you know the goal is clear, but the pathway to get there is not always so straight forward. You know, not only are new accessibility tools being released all the time, unless you’re a special education teacher, I’m not sure a lot of teachers even received formal training on this, you know, what they are, or how to use these tools. I didn’t learn much about it until I was a digital learning team rep in our district Assistive Technology Committee, and I was the only one that wasn’t a special ed teacher on the whole committee, you know. And even then, I feel like it was very limited exposure. So it seems like a real need for teachers to have more insight into this topic. So I’m kind of excited that we’re talking about it today.

Winston Benjamin  2:30 
I hear that, and I think for me, it’s the part that’s hard is loving all of my students, but knowing my lack of their skill set in that language, and also my lack of Latin knowledge skill set in their language, really, I feel like sometimes made it a barrier for me. So I really appreciate the opportunity to get into some ways that I can put down those barriers that help students find access. Because, like you said, Paul always want to, but it’s the how. So this is going to be a hard transition for us, because usually we like having Rena follow up with her response and all these other things. But you know, it’s going to be a little different today, Rena is going to get her chance to talk. Of course, that’s why it’s a little different today, we are excited as a team to welcome our esteemed colleague, Rena Clark, to have a conversation with us about this topic for all of our new listeners, can you tell us a little bit about your work you do and your job and the work you do with your colleagues in relation to translation tools in Your district. We know, what do you do? But just to help people figure it out, you know what I mean?

Rena Clark  3:44 
You mean, what’s my day job? Y’all.

Paul Beckermann  3:48 
So what is your day job, Rena?

Rena Clark  3:51 
and it actually changed in this last school year. So I now am an instructional technology facilitator, or referred to as an instructional technology coach, and I now support all of the high schools in the Auburn school district. So y’all might know that’s, you know, a bit of a shift. I’ve always been a digital learning expert, but really shifting more from elementary, middle to supporting high school, and then as far as my work supporting with translation tools. So what’s nice? Letter into AI are multi give it some parameters. Say, Hey, take this. I want to make it as simple as possible, and then I want to avoid I wanted. And so that every can think of this has come up over and over again. So in professional learning, we’ve been doing some close reading avid strategies, because we are an avid school district of these documents, and really having some deep conversations and thought about how translation tools are being integrated into our classrooms. So just to give you a little background of my my district, I. We are a medium, large size district of around 20,000 I students, but 25 to 30% of our students are classified as English language learners, or multilingual students. But over 40% of our students speak a language other than English in their home. And then here’s where it’s really different, like compared to where I grew up, there are over 80 different languages being spoken. So this is very different. Where I grew up, there were basically two languages spoken. We had English and Spanish. But as a teacher, things are really shifting, because it’s no longer, you know, two languages, maybe three. We’re talking about over 80 languages, and whether students are classified as multilingual language learners or not, over 40% of your students speak a language other than English in their home. So this kind of gives you an idea of what’s going on.

Paul Beckermann  5:53 
It’s kind of a mind blowing situation to think about, right that that you’re a teacher in a classroom and you have potentially, you know, 2030, different languages in in the one room. And how do you deal with with that kind of a dynamic? I love that you brought the topic up Rena, because we were brainstorming topics, and you started having conversation about this work you were doing in your district. So I’m super excited that you brought it to to our group here to set this table for the conversation. Do you want to talk about? You know, why is it important that we’re having this conversation about translation tools in our classrooms today, and what role do they actually play in supporting multilingual learners?

Rena Clark  6:33 
Yeah. So, as I mentioned, in the district I work in, we’ve just noticed a huge increase in the use of translation tools, and I think for a lot of reasons, demographics have shifted, and technology has made them a lot more accessible. When you’re on your device, who all the time see all these like translate buttons, and they’re just so much more accessible. And many translation tools offer quick translations in multiple languages. So as I said, if you have multiple languages in your classroom, it seems very appealing that I can just translate my slides or my presentation or this handout into multiple languages, and 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. But I like to think of them like a band aid. This is analogy I was just thinking of as I was helping my kid fix his cut on his finger. I was thinking, yeah, a band aids, a quick fix. You know, 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. There is a time and place for a band aid, but we need to be mindful of over using band aids and forgetting to take them off. So we kind of talk more about that.

Winston Benjamin  8:05 
I appreciate that it’s like the band aid situation, because it’s like the symptoms versus the actual cure for the actual issue. So I’m gonna ask this question, because a lot of times people are like, Oh, why? Why is this important? Can you give me the primary concern educators should be aware of when considering the use of this tool, of translation tools, again, like instead of knowing when to put a band aid or when not to put that band aid?

Rena Clark  8:32 
Yeah, so there need there. You need to be aware of a lot of issues when you’re thinking of using translation tools. And I’m going to be honest, when I first started this, I was unaware, because we don’t know what we don’t know. And as I’ve been thinking about having deeper conversations, there’s been a lot of aha moments by myself an educator, so if you’re listening, hopefully you have an aha moment. Here, one thing that I think is often overlooked, and I know I was as when I was teaching, even in sixth grade, this is something I didn’t think of in hindsight. I’m like, Oh my gosh, I was totally guilty of doing this, but the unintended increase of cognitive load for multilingual students. So most of our multilingual students don’t have literacy skills in their home language. They’re not coming with those literacy skills, maybe some in the secondary area, maybe not. So presenting information to our students in more than one language can actually increase the cognitive load for students. So imagine, you know, I have five new vocabulary words. Now I hand those five new vocabulary words in English to the student, and then I also hand them this whole translation of those words, and now they might not have access to either one of those and there’s twice as much in front of them, and it’s completely overwhelming, which then increases the cognitive load. Can really impact motivation and self worth. So it can actually have the exact opposite effect of. Of of what you’re going for. So that’s something to keep in mind that I hadn’t thought a lot about before. There’s also with especially machine translation, there’s a lot of inaccuracy. So they provide inaccurate translations, especially with high context languages. So Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Arabic, Dari. And so as an experiment with someone that is fluent in Dari, having them translate something into English and then looking at it, and then asking them and they’re fluent in both of this was the intended. No, it was not. It read very strangely in English. It wasn’t accurate. So it was, if you have the opportunity, maybe with some languages in your school, like backwards, try it the other way, so that you can see the inaccuracy of translation tools and what it might feel like to be on the receiving side. And then that goes into if you’re using them live or in class, or you aren’t fluent, I’m not fluent in all of these languages, the inability to monitor what is actually being said. So if a teacher speaking to a class and they’re having live translation or translating slides or whatever is going on, they don’t really know what is being said. They can’t monitor the monitor the messaging. They can’t tell if it’s accurate or appropriate. So we’ve had a few instances where things are translated, and there’s some cultural differences and some translation, and it actually is an inappropriate thing being translated. Think of the Word table, if I were just to have you draw a table that could be someone it could be a dining room table, it could be a table that I’m writing math things, and it could be a table diagram. It could be all kinds of different things. It means a lot of different things in English now that’s being translated and within context. Is it appropriate? Is it culturally appropriate? Does it make sense when it’s translated? So those are the type of things that are happening when using some of these translation tools, it’s inhibiting language acquisition and literacy instruction. So unfortunately, if there’s over dependence on these tools, it can actually discourage students from engaging in the language acquisition process. So rather than practicing listening and speaking and writing in English, we’re now just over relying on translation and not developing those skills or developing the process of decoding and comprehending English text. So in the end, my biggest concern is that when we over rely on translation tools, we discourage best practices. So we’ve kind of seen that teachers who rely on translation tools as their main way to provide accommodations, they aren’t using great strategies and best practice. Would say, you know, avid has lots of great strategies. We use. There’s different places. Use different strategies, psyop, glad strategies that are actually good for all students. So, you know, visuals, multi modal strategies, engaging and speaking and listening and that really helps language acquisition for students, and it those teaching practices actually help all students do better in the end. And it is important like students have the right to learn and acquire the English language, so we want to make sure we provide an environment where that is possible.

Winston Benjamin  13:44 
I mean that you, you kind of hit on the my follow up question, because I really like your ideas of, like, all the things that the translation tools are valuable for, but like your, your last part really hit on the what concerns or worries that should I be aware of when over relying, and it seems that it’s also the teacher not trying to engage with the student as well, right? Or if you rely on just the tool.

Paul Beckermann  14:10 
So there are definitely some things that we need to be thinking about and be cautious about with use of translation tools, especially that that over reliance piece that really resonates with me as well. But we’re not saying that you should never use it either. I’m hearing that as well. So when should we use them? When is it appropriate to use them in our classrooms? And when we do use them? How should we use them to utilize best practices into the integration of our lesson plans, to make sure that they’re complementing and not just replacing other strategies.

Rena Clark  14:42 
I mean, there’s always a time and a place, right? We can use that band aid. It can be helpful. So I always say it can be really helpful in small doses and with intentionality. So that is really important, that you are intentionally using it in small doses. So rather than translating whole. Text whole passages. Maybe you’re using it to translate individual words or short phrases that are very vital for comprehension. And in fact, we were talking about even in science like Spanish, your students that speak Spanish might actually have a better understanding of some of the scientific words because of the roots and where those words come from, they actually have an advantage to understanding those scientific words, those contexts worth better than native English speakers, so because of the root words and where those words come from. So when we translate, we’re actually taking away that opportunity. But we can translate specific words, specific things, and then we always talk about supporting that initial understanding, especially if we have newcomers or beginners. So we can translate, provide like provide a basic grasp of new material or a concept. But then, when we continue on, we don’t just continue translating. We then go on with other good teaching methods. So we want them to have that initial understanding, what are we talking about? What is this concept? But then, as we continue to progress, we don’t just keep translating, we add in good teaching methods, and then have those little supports. Individually, you can make some decisions, but it’s really great if you have the opportunity, if you know your students and your school plan with your team or in your PLC, because you can think together. What are those vital topics? What are those most important things? And then if you have the luxury of being able to partner with your multilingual or English language specialist or a facilitator or someone to help in that context, that’s even better. So it’s really great. And we’re going to talk a little bit about what we can do to supplement some of those translation things, I think coming up next. But I always talk about translation tools are a supplement. They’re not a replacement. So in the end, it’s all about critical thinking using multimodal methods. So we can provide it as a supplement and a help, but we don’t want to ever use it to replace completely all out replace.

Winston Benjamin  17:16 
I appreciate that, because this goes back to our earlier part of our conversation about the over relying, right? And because, like, my goal is to try to make students feel like they matter and they’re here, right? And I have this thing that I could use. But how can you support educators who are supporting multilingual learners so that they’re able to ensure that all students feel included without over relying on the translation tool, because it’s like, I got this tool. It works, kind of like parents putting them kids in front of the iPad. It works. May not be the best thing. So is that? What could educators think about, or what supports could we offer them to think through ways to support multilingual learners?

Rena Clark  17:59 
Yeah, and I think we’ve talked a lot on here, relationships always trump learning in a lot of ways. So building good relationships in the best way possible. And there’s things you can do with your teaching. But I also think empower the students so you you can empower the student to take their ownership. You don’t need to translate everything. So if you teach them, then they on their own students and families, they have access to translation, but we want to empower them as well to use it and appropriately, not all the time, but when they need a word translated or a specific thing. Rather than me translating everything and just making that assumption and putting that cognitive load on them, I can support them by teaching them how to use the tools that are available so that they can translate things that they want in the way they want, that they may need. That is one way. But above all, I would say more than anything, is this good instructional teaching practices we talk about. They’re good for everyone. They’re especially good for multilingual or multi language learners. So good teaching practices. So we talk about using visual aids. You know, lots of images, diagrams, charts, video having anchor charts in your room or digitally that can be referred back to a video where you’re explaining in clear English without a lot of jargon, and it’s something they can slow down, they can put the subtitles while listening into it, and they can rewind it and look at it. So that’s a great tool, or even during the day, if you’re recording that lecture and then uploading it so that it could be looked at again with captions, listening to in English with captions can be so helpful. You can have peer support so collaborative learning again peers facilitate peer to peer interactions. Use simplified language, so clear and straightforward language, so avoid. And complex structures, which is good for everyone. Now we’ve talked about AI on here a lot, but AI can be very helpful, but you have to be really intentional with your prompt engineering if you want supports for your your multi language learners. So one thing I’ve started doing in some of my AI prompts is I, I literally type in provide, you know, strategies to support multi language learners do not suggest anything with translation tools or provide supports without using translation tools. And what you’ll get back from the AI, so much better, because if you don’t put that, everything is just says, use a translation tool. Use a translation tool. But if you put those specific parameters in your AI search without using translation tools, you’re going to actually get some good instructional teaching practices that are good for everyone. So that’s a good one you can use in your AI that I found really helpful. And depending on your district and what you have available use the professional interpreters if you if you need to to ensure accuracy and cultural appropriateness when necessary. So anything of this, you know, critical communications, anything with legal ramifications, like, we have some pretty clear guidelines on things that have to be translated by a interpreter. You could look at your school guidelines to see what that is, to make sure that those things do get translated by an interpreter. And then, if you’re just doing a newsletter, often we like to share a newsletter. There’s some things to think about if you are in fact, going to translate the newsletter on your end, rather than having them translated on their end. Make sure that you include a cover page with a disclaimer about the limitations of machine translation and contact details for interpreters, and then English. And then you always should include the English version as well. It should accompany it. But I think probably more common is you’re going to share your newsletter. I know many districts, lots of ways we communicate, one that’s like parent square. Whatever it is, families have the option to choose how they receive things, how they use some of these machine translation tools. So knowing that families might be using machine translation to translate your newsletter, there’s things to keep in mind when writing newsletters, and actually, AI can be very helpful with this as well. But when you’re creating a newsletter, plain text like very plain and then when you’re putting it into a website or newsletter, we don’t want to flatten PDF, we don’t want pictures that have words. We just want plain text that’s directly on the page or the site, no images containing text, because those can’t be translated easily and then written in plain English. Avoid idioms, avoid colloquialisms and educational speak. And we like to say less is more text. Heavy communication has lower readership. So what’s nice is you can put a newsletter into AI, give it some parameters. Say, Hey, take this. I want to make it as simple as possible. I want to avoid idioms. I wanted this, this, this, and so that it’s easy for translation. It is a very useful way to use AI so that your newsletter can then actually be translated by your families through machine translation in a much better way.

Paul Beckermann  23:25 
I love using AI, but today I’m going to use RC Rena Clark, because I’ve got you right here, and he’s the real person you’ve kind of alluded to. You know, some of the long term skills that students might miss out on and some of the drawbacks. If I’m a teacher who is concerned about this, I want to do it the right way. How might I guide my students to use those tools responsibly?

Rena Clark  23:54 
So I always like to say digital citizenship is not a vaccine, and I work with high school teachers, and somehow we all just assume that they magically learned how to do this because they’re digital natives, like they know how to use tech appropriately and responsibly, or even know how to do it. So I think it’s really great in this instant, like take the five 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. So whether you’re a Google, Microsoft, Apple, whatever district, whatever kind of know what tools are available to you know what kind of translation tools might be used, what did students have available on their devices, and then take some time to practice. And then the other thing that’s fun for maybe your students that only speak English, have them find some non English documents and translate them into English and just get a feel of what that is actually like. And then, especially in some of those languages, i. Mentioned, like Chinese, Vietnamese, and so that they can develop some empathy, some understanding of that process as well. And that might help them, too, if they want to look at other documents, videos or things. But everyone can practice that, and then they could even go home and show their families, possibly how to access that, so that everyone, and that is a nice thing that you can visually share. You don’t need a lot of words those good teaching practices. And I think everyone would benefit from that.

Paul Beckermann  25:28 
Would there be any value to having, like, a family night to teach parents how to use those tools?

Rena Clark  25:35 
Yeah, I think if you have the resources and tools to do that. It’s great. I know what we did on conference nights, because it families coming in anyways. Our Department of Technology actually had at our own station, and we had interpreters present as well for our top five languages, and they were able to support families and getting into our digital tools and settings for them. So if you have the, you know, resources to do something like that, I think that’s really lovely for our families to make things accessible for them. And we also, we also have flyers in our top languages that then we can also give families that walk them through how to set up some of those tools as well.

Paul Beckermann  26:22 
Great ideas. I love that. And I’m also thinking, what are some other tools that we might drop into the toolkit for our teachers?

Transition Music with Rena’s Children  26:31 
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit, or what’s in the toolkit. Check it out.

Paul Beckermann  26:43 
All right, let’s, let’s look at a few more tools here. Who’d like to go first? Rena Winston, who wants to go?

Winston Benjamin  26:49 
I’ll jump in, because I’m actually just going to take something that Rena said earlier and apply it. So the thing that I really appreciate is asking your students what tool they’re using, because you’re accessing their funds of knowledge and giving them the opportunity to be a expert in the moment. And then when you have students who feel that they’re expert in the moment, that gives them an opportunity to truly engage fully in the activity. So I just like Rena was saying, like knowing what they’re already doing because they’re already doing that, they don’t need to learn a new entire device that would prevent them from accessing the information again, because they’re doing another cognitive activity. So I think that that might simplify it and help them make sense of the work. You know what?

Paul Beckermann  27:33 
I’m going to go next? Because Rena is our expert here today, and if I don’t go next, I might not have anything. So, you know, we talked about some translation tools and Google Translate. So one that always comes up, but there’s a, there’s a piece of Google Translate that I think can be really helpful, and it allows you to put a URL to a website into the Google Translate and it’ll translate, then the entire website. It doesn’t seem like it’s foolproof to me. I put it on a couple sites, and it didn’t really do the trick. But when it works, it’s pretty slick. So that might be a way to help parents access a school website, for instance, if, if there’s a language barrier there. So that’s my tool. What do you got? Rena? What else you have for us?

Rena Clark  28:19 
I’ve just really been trying to support with different visuals, and I think something like Canva or Adobe Express, and then also with the lovely now that you have some AI that you can use to create visuals, because before maybe you’re like, Ah, I just can’t find the visual I need. I don’t know how to communicate this with the visual. I feel like it’s gotten a lot faster and easier. I can use that AI to create that visual really quickly that I’m looking for to accompany the information, just to support, again, all learners, not just my ml students, and even some of those diagrams. I mean, I love using Canva. You can use it for storyboard creation, or mind mapping, all of those things that I are good for everybody, but can be really helpful for our multilingual students.

Winston Benjamin  29:07 
Man, I appreciate that. It’s time for that one thing.

Transition Music  29:17 
Time for that one thing. It’s that one thing,

Winston Benjamin  29:21 
and now we’re in that one thing section, like, what’s the one thing that’s still roaming around? I’m gonna ask Rena to go live because, again, she’s dropping mad knowledge on us. So Paul, what’s the one thing that you’re still thinking about?

Paul Beckermann  29:34 
You know, I never really thought about the fact that over reliance of translation tools could actually hinder language development, and that’s kind of an important thing to think about. You know, Rena, you gave the band aid example. I’m thinking of like crutches. You know, crutches are kind of important. When you break a break a leg or something, you need that support for a little while. But if you never get off the crutches, your legs are going to atrophy even after they’ve healed, and you’ll never really you. Walk well again. So there’s my analogy, Rena, but that’s a, you know, a point of view that I had just hadn’t thought about. So thanks for sharing that,

Winston Benjamin  30:12 
and I’m gonna go the thing that I really appreciate is that we, even though we focused on translation tools, it came back to good teaching practice. Once you know what the students how to help students access the information. How are you giving them information? How are you challenging them to utilize that information? What’s your next steps for them with that information that you’ve given them access to? So I really appreciate that. It goes back to once you got this thing, what’s your good teaching practices to allows for student support. Rena, I throw it to you, what’s your what’s what’s one more thing that you’re that you would love to put in the space.

Rena Clark  30:57 
I am actually thinking about an event, and I was at an in a different district, but I was doing my admin internship, but we had the privilege of we actually set up I was in an elementary school, and we invited back a panel of high school students that were originally from that elementary school, and they entered that school as like Beginning so brand new to English, multi language learners, and they came back as a panel, and we were able to ask them questions, and they talked about their experience within the class, what they actually was most helpful for them, how they experienced it, and that was probably the most powerful, If like one of the most powerful and engaging professional learning that we did the entire year, and it was fascinating, because teachers really value those were their students, and the things that kids said were surprising. But I mean, one actually said, I am thankful that they forced me to speak English and they called on me and because it made me have to speak and practice they go at the time. It was hard, but I’m very thankful that I was forced to do that, because it helped me learn the language, and it was just great. So if you can set up an opportunity like that where you can invite students to come back and share their experience and learn from the students that have gone through it, because I don’t know I didn’t have that experience. I really think that could empower our teachers, and it can provide some really good connections to why this is what we do, why this is important. So

Paul Beckermann  32:37 
isn’t that a great reminder ask the kids, right? Yeah, if anybody should know it’s, it’s them. And Winston, you kind of alluded to that in your one thing too. We’ve got to connect with the kids.

Winston Benjamin  32:49 
Ask them what’s going on. And I think what your point even to that point, Rena, is like, going back to your earlier statement about relationships, right? Like, how do you even know to get the kid back into the space to come and tell you what they needed or what they got or anything. And also the fact that the student, even though they were afraid to still felt comfortable enough to speak when given the chance right like, I think, creating the space for that is also powerful in that way, right? Even like healthy risk is a great thing, and I think that’s something that you’re asking us to prepare our students for, is to take healthy risk in schools, because if no one wants to look like a fool, and I think it’s really important that we are not even trying to speak their language or having them speak ours. What would it feel like for us to be in their shoes and actually try to speak and try to translate? So I love the fact that you’re bringing awareness for us to think about all of our students. This is a great topic, and I will bring this back to my book. So I really appreciate you. Thank you for this video.

Rena Clark  34:04 
It was fun to be on the other side. Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin  34:11 
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org where you can discover resources to support student, agency, equity and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future. Ready learners.

Paul Beckermann  34:24 
We’ll be back here next Wednesday for a fresh episode of Unpacking Education, and remember,

Rena Clark  34:30 
Go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin  34:33 
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann  34:35 
You make a difference.