A recent report published by the Pew Hispanic Center estimates the number of immigrant students to increase from 12.3 million in 2005 to 17.9 million in 2020, accounting for all the projected growth in the school-age population. With half of this population arriving from over 200 countries from around the world, stretching your dollars across additional languages is difficult at best. With the nation’s English language learner student population expected to grow so rapidly, it has never been more important to learn the tools and resources that will help you get the most out of your translation budget.

Fortunately, these issues and more will be addressed in K12Translate’s second installment of our 2010 webcast series, titled “Stretching Translation Dollars for Your District: Five Tips Including Translation Memory 101.” This FREE webinar will take place May 25th at 11:00 AM(PT), 2:00 PM(ET), and will teach you the basics of how translation is priced and what you can do to stretch your translation budget. You will also learn what translation memory is, and when it can save you 10%-25% off your district’s translations!

We hope you can join us!

Register here

Keep Learning!
Leslie
K12Translate

According to a 2009 publication by the Center for Health and Healthcare in Schools, it is estimated that children from immigrant and refugee families may constitute 30 percent of American students by 2015. Almost half of all foreign-born ELL students are from Mexico, while the other half are from over 200 countries from around the world.

Children who arrive in the country as immigrants and refugees often face significant challenges on top of learning a new language. In some cases, their departure to a new country is sudden, causing them to quickly leave behind friends, relatives and the comfort of their own culture. Enrolling in a new and different education system—or in some cases, entering formal schooling for the first time, can also pose as a challenge to both the student and the teacher. In addition, cultural differences in values, beliefs and attitudes about education can greatly impact their transition into a new school.

Supporting refugee and immigrant students may start in the classroom, but it does not stop there. Communication and involvement with the families and communities, especially in terms of recognizing their culture and experiences, will help you make great strides in the students’ scholastic success.

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Leslie
K12Translate

Today is the last day to apply for Federal aid from the Race to the Top fund which has been put in place by the Obama Administration. There are approximately 4.3 billion dollars available for 40 states across the country to create innovative reform programs for their school districts. However, in order to qualify for a piece of the pie, states must take several definitive measures such as close failing schools, increase academic standards and evaluate teachers based on their students performance.

Knowing that there is a significant education gap between ELL and native English speaking students, does the Race to the Top program affect ELL students in a negative or positive manner? For instance, in the Hispanic/Latino community the education gap disproportionately affects Latino students. According to Arlene Hambrick, Ph.D., of the North Central Regional Educational Library, “By Grade 12 … 4 percent of Hispanic students reach the proficient level in mathematics, as opposed to the 20 percent of white students.” Would this statistic make schools with high ELL populations vulnerable to closure? Or would it serve as a catalyst in fund allocation to improve student performance?

A host of factors, from historical to cultural to financial, contribute to the unique experience of ESL and ELL families that impact their scholastic accomplishments. Unfortunately, all too often these details are overlooked within the education system at-large due to budget limitations. Would Race to the Top programs begin to address such questions as “What communications medium is preferred by ELL audiences?” and “What languages are they communicating in?” The answers to these questions will ultimately determine how school districts will engage their English Language Learning (ELL) students, decrease the education gap and ultimately improve academic achievement.

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Maggie

K12Translate

Are there documents your school district uses that require small updates every year, but the majority of the text stays the same? For instance, does your district send out registration forms every single year in Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian but only the date changes? Or did your district spend $10,000 translating your parent handbook into five languages last year and only 25% of the content has been updated for the current school year? In that case, ask your LSP (Language Service Provider) to archive past projects for quick reference and use later. The next time the document needs to be translated, you’ll likely only have to consider minor revisions instead of the cost of translating the entire set of materials again from scratch.

Also, keep in mind that some web content, once translated, can be repurposed into documents for distribution many times over. Or, you may be able to locate translated information available by reputable sources online instead of translating directly from scratch. For instance, the California Department of Education publishes a clearinghouse of notification translations into several languages such as Spanish, Korean, Hmong, Chinese and Vietnamese. You might just find the translation you are looking for already online!

Keep Learning!
Maggie
K12Translate