According to a report in the Washington Examiner, there are 5 million immigrants who were granted US citizenship but cannot speak English.
These 5 million immigrants, no doubt, include children who will attend school. They are likely struggling with their lessons as they do not understand their teachers and textbooks. The challenges are being felt by both students and parents who need to cope with their new environments.
Schools are keen on bridging the gap in communications. As the U.S. population continues to grow and diversify, the need to communicate in multiple languages is becoming more of a necessity for educators who want to help their non-English-speaking students and their families integrate into their new communities.
Fortunately, there are interpreting and translation services that can be used to translate all types of school communications, such as memos, teacher-parent communications, and curricular materials. Documents such as permission slips, report cards, event invitations, and other school notices can also be translated.
The effort made by educators to communicate with non-English speaking students and parents is a gesture that is greatly appreciated. It helps build relationships between the teacher and student, encouraging the students to build their bilingual identities.
When schools and individual educators leverage translation services, they are doing more than just providing clearer communication; they are also bridging the cultural divides that keep communities from creating stronger ties. As students learn from their school and teachers, they can bring the knowledge home to where other non-English speaking family members will benefit from it.
There are different types of educators beyond teachers, including private tutors and corporate trainers. By using translation services such as document translation, telephonic interpretation, and in-person interpreting, these educators are equipped to communicate with their students and can prepare the curricular material needed to carry out their lesson plans.
Telephonic interpretation services also allow educators to communicate with their students and parents in times of parent-teacher conferences. Many telephonic interpretation services are available without the need to pre-schedule as they are available 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
Machine translation, or MT, is an available option for teachers as well. However, because these programs don’t possess the same skill as a human translator to deliver superior and accurate translation, you risk losing the intended meaning of what you truly meant to say. There’s the risk that the machine may translate something in the wrong context that could potentially offend the person you are trying to communicate with since the software doesn’t always take cultural differences into account.
Only qualified human translators can translate documents or an educator’s words into the intended language in a manner that considers the accurate interpretation rather than the direct translation.
