There has been a lot in the news concerning the Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 Horne v. Flores ruling that says the federal government should no longer be supervising state spending on ELL education in Arizona. The highest court in the land has found that Arizona already does a sufficient job of educating ELL students, and Arizona has not broken any federal laws that require schools to provide assistance such as education translation services and bilingual programs to ELL students.
According to Richard Fry of the Pew Research Center, the five states with the highest number of ELL students are Arizona, California, Florida, New York and Texas with about 70% of the total country’s ELL student population. Of this student population, there is still a very significant achievement gap between ELL students and their fluent English speaking counterparts, “In both elementary grades and middle school grades in these states, ELL students are much less likely than white students to score at or above the proficient level in mathematics. The measured gaps are in the double-digits. For example, in Florida 45% of ELL third-graders scored at or above the proficient level on the math assessment, compared with 78% of white third-graders, yielding a white-to-ELL gap of 34 percentage points.”
In my mind, with a 34% achievement gap, I am incredibly hesitant to discontinue monitoring state spending on ELL education. It is our responsibility to ensure all students, regardless of their English fluency, are receiving the highest quality education that we can provide. If we don’t spend the money necessary for education translation services and ELL programs, our ELL students will slip through the cracks even further.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/education/26educ.html?_r=3&emc=eta1
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/882/english-language-learner
K12Translate.com Home
Get in touch
1-800-737-8481
info@k12translate.com
Archive for June, 2009
Is the Supreme Court determining the fate of education translation services in schools?
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009Culture Is the First Step in Effective Language Translation Services
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
While language provides the building blocks to communicating with your English Language Learning (ELL) parents and students, it is always a good idea to understand the cultural components at work within a larger socio-political context. Knowing that many non-English speaking immigrants and refugees come from a wide range of war-torn countries, economically devastated regions and politically tumultuous regimes, we must tailor the message, and the language translation services, to sympathize with their unique experience.
The story of Karen, a guidance counselor, perfectly illustrates how personal experience can deeply influence perception. Karen was responsible for organizing the new school year registration kick-off for her district. She chose a “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie theme for the event to keep the registration process upbeat and lively. Unfortunately, Karen didn’t consider the implications that a pirate motif would have for the Cambodian parents, many of whom had fled the Khmer Rouge as refugee “Boat People.” The images of pirates recalled traumatic memories for the Cambodian parents, which, in turn, significantly reduced their enrollment participation.
If Karen had considered a native Cambodian’s perspective, she would have been better prepared to create a welcoming environment for all of the parents. Hopefully, in the future, Karen can adapt her message, and the language translation services that follow, to her audience’s experience.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Chin Refugees from Burma: Which Language Is Which?
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Understanding which language your English Language Learning (ELL) parents and students speak is a crucial piece in the road to providing effective, culturally sensitive language translation services. Although a person may hail from another country, they may not speak the dominant language of that country as their first language or even speak it at all.
For instance, the United States has recently seen a dramatic climb in displaced persons from Burma. Although the majority of these folks speak Burmese as their native tongue, the ethnic Chin people from Burma speak 20-25 different languages that are divided into four groups based on linguistic similarity.
Of these languages, the majority of Chin refugees that have resettled in the United States speak Hakha-Chin; there are approximately 1,000 Hakha-Chin speakers in the United States. However, this number is expected to increase because the U.S. government has signed a waiver to exempt Chin refugees from the provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act that restrict resettlement in the U.S.
For administrators, teachers and staff, in order to provide meaningful education language translation services, they will need to discern whether their community reads and speaks Burmese or Hakha-Chin. Obviously, you don’t want to send a Burmese translation to a Hakha-Chin reader or you run the risk of wasting precious budget on translations that no one understands! Ultimately, knowing who your audience is will save you money and prevent miscommunication.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
References:
http://www.khonumthung.com/kng-news/07-news/more-recognition-to-chin-refugees-after-us-waiver/
Should We Provide Language Translation Services or Interpret for Kirundi Speakers?
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Per the Office of Refugee Resettlement records, almost 6,000 refugees from Burundi arrived in the United States over the past five years. In 2007 alone, 4,525 refugees arrived on U.S. soil. Obviously, the trend of resettlement from Burundi to the Unites States is steadily increasing. In fact, from 2006 to 2007 the number of refugees from Burundi jumped 29 percent! The top five states for resettlement are Texas, Arizona, Tennessee, Illinois and
New York.
Kirundi is the language spoken throughout Burundi and regions of Rwanda. The general population has a literacy rate of 59.3 percent, which is one of the lowest in the world. So, the question education professionals must ask is whether translating written materials is the best option for this population. Would the community of Kirundi speakers be able to read the materials that have been translated? Or, would the audience actually comprehend
more through a spoken interpreter instead of written language translation services?
We definitely have some things to think about while we start preparing for our 2009-2010 school year. Particularly for the folks in Texas, Arizona and Tennessee.…
If you would like to share some of your Kirundi language translation or interpretation strategies I would love to hear from you.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
References: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html
On the Move from Oaxaca: Expanding Language Translation Services
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
As our neighbor to the south and our third largest trading partner, Mexico has been in the news quite a bit recently. We have heard news reports ranging from the strengthening value of the peso to swine flu.
However, I have seen relatively little about the significant increase of indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec speakers from the Mexican state of Oaxaca migrating to the United States. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Zapotecs and Mixtecs have immigrated to the United States over the last 20 years. The Zapotec and Mixtec ethnic groups are marked by incredible linguistic diversity. There are 64 separate Zapotec languages and approximately 57 different Mixtec languages.
What does this mean for education translation in the United States? It means that we need to start discussing language access and language translation services for this population. According to researcher Sarah Poole, by the year 2010 Mixtecs and Zapotecs will comprise 20 percent of the agricultural force in the United States. Currently, this population primarily resides in Southern California, but as they migrate across the country following agricultural cycles, school districts need to start thinking about adding these languages to their language translation services budgets.
Ultimately, the better prepared we are, the better equipped we will be to provide effective language translation services to these families.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
References:
New People, New Languages – Rare Languages Spoken in the United States
Monday, June 8th, 2009
As many teachers and administrators already know, requests for Languages of Limited Diffusion are on the rise among providers of K12 education language translation services. According to the UNESCO , in the world today, the number of people speaking lesser-known languages is 1.25 billion, or 20 percent of the world’s population.
Over the past five years, I have seen language requests expand outside the core languages of Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Chinese into languages rarely seen before in the United States such as Twi (Ghana), Karen (Myanmar/Burma) and Ilocano (Philipines).
On one hand, it is of vital importance for educators to be at the forefront of this movement in order to communicate effectively with English Language Learning (ELL) communities. On the other hand, rare languages pose significant challenges for providers of language translation services. These include limited translator availability, cost-prohibitive translations and low literacy rates within the target audience.
I will be spending the next several posts discussing new populations coming to the United States and different strategies to overcome some of the language translation challenges school districts face.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Michelle Obama highlights the necessity of K12 ELL education and effective language translation services
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
Michelle Obama’s recent commencement speech at the University of California – Merced is remarkable in many ways. But the most striking element is that instead of speaking at a well-established school such as Harvard or Stanford, Ms. Obama chose UC-Merced, a little-known, four-year-old university with a diverse student population made up of 40.3 percent underrepresented ethnic or racial groups. Many of these students are immigrants or come from English Language Learning (ELL) immigrant families.
Ms. Obama’s choice highlights a growing education trend in the United States. This emerging movement recognizes and provides high-quality education to a widely diverse population who speaks many languages and maintains distinctive cultures. This makes sense when you consider that between 1990 and 2000, non-white ethnic populations jumped from 23 percent to 30 percent and are commonly expected to account for over half the U.S. population by 2050.
During the early K12 years, ELL students and parents thrive in culturally sensitive environments that provide language translation services and embrace differences. These same students enroll in schools like the University of California – Merced, schools that celebrate our nation’s diversity.
Just ask the First Lady where our youth is headed.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
The Many Voices of Education Meet Language Translation Services
Monday, June 1st, 2009
When Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a-changing” in 1964 there were 51.7 million people in the United States enrolled in all forms of educational institutions such as K12 schools, colleges, universities and trade schools.
The American Community Survey showed that by 2006 there were 53 million children ages 5-17 years enrolled in K12 schools alone! Of that 53 million, 11 million children spoke a language other than English at home, while another 3 million spoke English less than “very well.”
Obviously, Bob Dylan was on the right track when he sang that times are a-changing, but who would have thought our population would evolve so dramatically that by 2006, 20 percent of our K12 students would speak a mother tongue other than English?
To reach this next generation, it is our responsibility to ensure the every English Language Learning (ELL) student and parent has language access through language translation services and interpretation. To this end, we are very excited to introduce our new online education translation services, K12Translate. Like you, we know that providing clear and accurate language translations services to non-native English speakers is an essential tool in high-quality education
We sincerely look forward to providing our online education translation services to you and your community.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
