I just finished reading a rather concerning Los Angeles Times article about English Language Learners in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The article discusses a study that was released on Wednesday which suggests that 30% of ELL students in LAUSD remain in English languages classes far too long – from primary grades into high school.
What the study doesn’t address is why these students remain in English Language Learning classrooms for so long. Is there an egregious lack of ELL education funding? Have culturally appropriate education translations been made available? What socio-political factors play a role in this learning gap? The article even mentions; “researchers say schools may avoid moving English learners into mainstream classes to keep test scores high.”
With such a variety of variables affecting how and when our ELL students are entering into mainstream classrooms, we need to get very serious about how we address English Language Learning. Considering 20% of elementary and secondary school children speak a language other than English at home it is absolutely crucial for our non-native English speaking students to become more competitive in school.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
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Archive for October, 2009
The State of English Language Learners
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Education Translation Style Guides
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Most school districts translate into several languages. In fact, a common requirement for many districts is to provide written translations into the top 5 languages spoken in their region or translation for every 100 speakers of a language. Inevitably if you are translating into more than one language and working with numerous linguistic teams, you are bound to run into consistency issues.
Language inconsistencies may crop up in a variety of ways such as formatting preferences, fonts, literacy levels and how acronyms are translated. One way to minimize the amount of variance across languages and translation projects is to create a reference guide that captures the specifics for your school district. This reference document, or style guide, will provide clear direction to your translators on how the final education translations should be delivered while maintaining linguistic symmetry. For instance, I always make sure to include entries in my style guides that cover date preferences – should we use the US standard of month/day/year or should we use the more common European/Latin American standard of day/month/year pending on language?
By defining your district’s expectations through a style guide at the beginning of the translation process, you will be taking big strides toward preventing future headaches.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Education Translation Glossaries
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
Every school district across the country has their own unique terminology. On the West Coast, school districts in California may say “teachers” whereas on the East Coast the term “educators” may be more commonly used. To further illustrate, one quick Google search for the word “student” comes up with several synonyms such as “learner”, “pupil” and “scholar”. This same language diversity holds true for education translations. Language translations are further complicated by regional nuances such as the differences between Cuban Spanish and Mexican Spanish.
In order to bridge this multilingual gap and ensure that your education translations are hitting the mark with your ELL audience, I would recommend developing multilingual glossaries prior to translation. A glossary is a comprehensive list of commonly used terms, phrases and proper names specific to your school district. The terms are translated accordingly with your specific target ELL audience in mind. The creation of a multilingual glossary provides a baseline for all of your future translation projects.
By determining what the commonly used terms are and their corresponding translations are up front, your school district will minimize the risk of an unfavorable community review or inaccurate translation down the road.
Here you go with a few popular K12 English glossaries to get you started:
Illinois State Board of Education Acronym Glossary
North Central Regional Education Laboratory – Education Glossary
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Education Translation Toolbox
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
It is common knowledge that different regions across the United States have unique accents ranging from the Southern drawl to the long O’s of Minnesota and everything in between. Along with accents, folks tend to speak with their own local flair which encompasses terminology and colloquialisms. For instance, in Wisconsin a “water fountain” is often referred to as a “bubbler” and soda is known as “pop”. Keeping this in mind, there are usually several ways in which to say the exact same thing and convey the same meaning.
However, unique language doesn’t just stop at English but extends across all languages and cultural groups. What may be common place terminology for folks in Northern Somalia may be completely different for those in Southern Somalia. Thus, in order to ensure that your school districts’ language translations are effectively reaching your ELL populations, it can be beneficial and even imperative that education translations are using the appropriate terminology and style of a specific culture or region.
Over the next few posts, I will be sharing with you some tips on how to equip your language translators with the right tools to reach your unique ELL audience – essentially a translator’s toolbox to hit the mark every time.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate
Vietnamese Language Overview for Education Translation Professionals
Monday, October 5th, 2009
Vietnamese Americans comprise one of the United States’ largest Asian populations. In fact, the Vietnamese language is one of the most frequently sought after languages for education translations across school districts. Knowing more about the language can be very beneficial for K-12 educators with sizable Vietnamese populations in their districts.
Vietnamese, Vietnam’s official language, is a tonal language that can be compared to Cambodia’s official language, Khmer. With each syllable, there are six different tones that can be used that change the definition and often make it difficult for non-native speakers to pick up the language. There are other languages spoken in Vietnam as well, such as Chinese, Khmer, Cham and several languages spoken by indigenous peoples inhabiting the mountainous regions. Although there are some similarities to Southeast Asian languages, such as Chinese, Vietnamese is thought to be a separate language group, although still a member of the Austro-Asiatic language family.
In written form, Vietnamese uses the Roman alphabet and accent marks to show tones. This system of writing called “quoc ngu”, was created by Catholic missionaries in the 17th century to translate the scriptures. Eventually this system, particularly after World War I, replaced one using Chinese characters (chu nom), which had been the unofficial written form used for centuries.
Keep Learning!
Maggie
