The Roles and Backgrounds of School Interpreters

May 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

John F. Kennedy once said, “Everywhere immigrants have enriched and strengthened the fabric of American life.” But the question I would like to pose is, “If we neglect communication between our English-speaking population and our ever-increasing limited-English-proficient (LEP) population, how can they truly enrich and strengthen our American life?” We used to presume that English was the predominant language of our nation, but clearly this demographic is rapidly changing.  In many sectors we are trying to incorporate language diversity into the workings of daily life, and yet the area in which we should be focusing most on communication integration—education—we are not doing so effectively.

Within the field of education, limited research has been conducted on communication integration –specifically regarding the roles and backgrounds of school interpreters, as well as their collaborative practices with school counselors.  The majority of published literature has focused on school psychologists’ use of interpreters for conducting behavioral or psychological assessments—often to determine potential learning disabilities or psychological disturbances in students. For these assessments, interpreters are used to interpreting questions and responses orally to ease the communication barrier between the LEP student and the school psychologist. It has not been until recently that researchers have begun to explore the necessary use of interpreters in our continuously evolving school systems. The following reviews of literature in this area attempt to demonstrate how crucial interpreter training and collaboration are to enhanced communicative practices in our school systems.

In 1997, Emilia Lopez and Mary Ellen Rooney, avid researchers and experts in the exploration of the roles of interpreters, published results from a survey study where they investigated the backgrounds of individuals working as interpreters and the specific roles these interpreters fulfilled in schools.  Lopez and Rooney addressed four different research questions in their study:

1) What are the backgrounds of interpreters currently providing services to LEP students?

2) Within what grade levels do interpreters provide services?

3) With which professionals do interpreters work with in schools?

4) During which activities do interpreters provide services?

The population sample was collected from New York State, consisting of 89 total interpreters working in 29 different languages. Results from this study indicate that interpreters working for rural school systems, on average, had seven years of interpreting experience, while city interpreters had five. Researchers found 33% of interpreters had master’s level training or higher but lacked certification or degrees specifically in language interpreting. The majority of interpreters worked on a part-time basis and often had other employment in the field of education, thus possessing a more thorough understanding of the school system. Overall, interpreters provided the most services to elementary schools, followed by middle schools, then high schools and preschools.

Education professionals with whom the interpreters reported working with were classified as education evaluators, school psychologists, special education teachers, and social workers. Interpreters were used to help facilitate the conversation between the LEP student (and family) and the English speaker. All interpreting services took place on-site.

Results of this study also indicated that the bulk of interpreting services were provided in evaluations, parent/teacher/student consultations, and psychological assessments of behavior. These results allowed Lopez and Rooney to conclude that individuals who interpret for schools needed to complete a specific training or certification program and nationwide standards need to be established for school interpreters.

Another study conducted by Emilia Lopez in 2000 explores how the use of school interpreters can influence parent/teacher/student consultation in a multicultural high school setting. Consultations between parents, teachers, and students have been recommended in an effort to support academic intervention services for LEP students. In these consultations, academic problems are discussed; students, tasks, and classroom environments are evaluated; interventions are planned; and evaluations are performed. This case study examined five instructional consultations between five LEP students, their parents, consultees (three teachers and two guidance counselors), and consultants (primary investigator and research team). Data was collected over a three-academic year time span.

Results from this case study indicated delays in the consultation process due to difficulties scheduling interpreters, as well as due to the consultees’ and interpreters’ lack of training. All parties recognized and supported the need for interpreters. Overall, Lopez reported that the use of interpreters for instructional consultations was reported to contribute to a more positive communication line between LEP students, their parents, and school staff. Due to the absence of training or standards for school-based interpreters, though, some communication was distorted while being orally interpreted between the parties, thus negatively impacting the rapport between parents and consultees. For example, throughout the consultation process the interpreters would engage in long conversation with clients and parents but would only offer brief English interpretations to the consulting team. Lopez also describes another particular situation during the parent interviews where interpreters stated that they would not interpret everything said during the interview; two interpreters were quoted saying, “Translating everything said was too time consuming,” and “I can communicate the gist of the conversation accurately and that is the most important part.”  As the study progressed, this poor interpreting quality helped researchers be able to reaffirm the need for an interpreter-training program or certification, especially for working in school settings.   

Although this study helps develop a foundation to create new policy and theories regarding school interpreters,  the small sample size prevents results from being generalizable to the larger population. Specific experience levels of consultees and interpreters were not reported within the study, which hinders the representativeness of the sample and makes study replication more difficult. Researchers do offer recommendations for educators working with interpreters:

–Hire interpreters who have experience in providing interpreting services.

–If trained interpreters are not available, look to hire bilingual personnel that you can provide specific training.

–Interpreters should have a high level of proficiency in the language used for interpreting services.
–The reason for an interpreter and what will be happening during the interpreting appointment should be discussed with the interpreter prior to the beginning of the session.

–You should speak in short and simple sentences so that the interpreter is able to orally interpret everything.

In summary, collaboration between interpreters and school staff is crucial to an LEP student’s survival in an American school setting. Results from the above studies indicate the need for official training programs or certification for school interpreters to avoid skewed interpretations and miscommunication. As the US continues to see rising numbers of foreign-born students, employment of bilingual school staff and collaboration with interpreters will inevitably increase, thus creating the need for a streamlined school interpreter training program and increased communication resources to help LEP students continue enriching and strengthening the American way of life.

(Blog by Abigail Thompson, Interpreting Project Manager)

Filed Under: community interpreting, education, interpreters, interpreting, school, social service interpreting, Uncategorized

Multilingual Mayoral Forum

October 12, 2010 By 1 Comment

On October 20th at 6:30 pm, the Americana Community Center presents “A Multicultural Evening with Candidates Greg Fischer and Jackie Green,” as part of their mayoral candidate forum. Interpreters from In Every Language will interpret the forum from English into Spanish, French and Swahili.
Non-English languages are playing a vital role in tight races, such as the one for Louisville mayor. A recent Huffington Post article (“In Tight Races for Congressional Seats, Language Could Make a Difference”) stresses the importance of candidates reaching limited-English-speaking audiences in the upcoming election. According to the article, 4.2 percent of Kentuckians speak a language other than English in the home.“[E]ven tiny margins can make or break a candidate. The ability to communicate to potential voters in their native languages is taking on new importance,” says Nataly Kelly, the article’s author.
In Every Language is providing free interpreters at the event so that Louisville’s international community members may access the same information as Louisville’s English-speaking community.  In Every Language offers translation, localization, and interpreting services nationally in 175 different languages.
Filed Under: Americana, community outreach, education, forums, immigrants, In Every Language, Kentucky, Ky, Louisville, political interpreting, politicians, politics, refugees

Where the Disconnect Is Not

April 10, 2010 By 10 Comments

“We are building a bridge.” This is the phrase I heard over and over again at the US Conference on African Immigrant Health (USCAIH) this week.

Last week, I blogged on the disconnect. I wrote about how our nation’s leaders were unaware of language’s vital role in healing, how people don’t heal if they don’t understand, how interpreting in of itself is a profession with ethics and rules. The disconnect is there.

But here, with community leaders from all throughout the African Diaspora, the disconnect is not. Instead, there is a concerted effort to bring together aspects of all industries that help people–especially Africans–heal.

I arrived here Wednesday. Our first event was a meet and greet where attendees stood and introduced themselves, explaining what their interest was in African health and what they expected to get from the conference. I identified myself as Terena Bell with In Every Language, said I was here to represent the medical interpreting industry, that I had seen this disconnect and I was here to learn how we could fix it. When I sat down, almost every person in the room said “thank you” and some even clapped. An Ethiopian man walked up to me and instantly started talking about the difficulty of getting trained interpreters in Minneapolis, the need for continued training for those entering the profession. A man from Ghana stood up in front of everyone and talked about how interpreters for Muslim patients need to be culturally aware of faith’s role in healing—and better paid. At Harvard, people wondered why I was even there, had never thought of language as a health-related issue. Here, at the USCAIH, attendees were willing to join with the language industry in its fight.

I am not writing this to compare one conference to the next, or the Alliance for Health in the African Diaspora (the conference organizers) to Harvard. What Harvard does not know is clearly to Harvard’s loss. But, just as I had to point out where the disconnect is, I have to point out where the disconnect is not.

So what makes the difference? Why were these two audiences so different?

I have long said that there are two types of doctors in the world: those who want to make sure their patients understand and those who do not. Perhaps there are similarly two types of people: those who want to help people understand and those who do not. I am not calling the other group cold or cruel. But there are people in this world whose drive and desire to improve their world is innate, unavoidable, a moving, liquid force. I saw that this week in the faces of everyone here. Representatives from all across the African diaspora came together to share, to commune, to–as they put it–build a bridge. They, too, talked about breaking down silos, but they took the time to find out what those silos held.

Friday, I presented on language access for African LEP’s. Every single person who heard about my topic said thank you, whether they attended my session or not. Dozens of people said, “We need that.” Most had interpreter stories of their own. A keynote on African Americans living with HIV even had a medical interpreter working from French to English. There is clearly no disconnect here.

But there is a need. They need us. And we need them. After what happened at Harvard, and after the warm reception I received here, I completely changed my presentation. It had initially been on where to get materials, how to get professional translation when materials weren’t there already. But meeting these people and learning more about how active they want to be in every area impacting African American health, I changed it.

There are three factors in LEP patient healing: the patient, the provider, and the language professional. All three must be on top of their game for healing to happen. Like our government, they must be in checks and balances with one another—they must all play their role, but they must also listen. For the patient, I discussed Title VI and HIPAA, the need to know you have a right to a professional, medical interpreter. For the provider, I discussed the need for cross-cultural training in universities and from hospital associations as CME’s. For the language professional, I said we must listen. We must listen to the patient and the provider to learn their need before we can address it. I told the people there that we could not do it without them, that if we as a language profession are wrong, then they must make us stop and listen.

And that’s the difference. As a language industry, we have been speaking, but at Harvard, no one had yet listened. I still believe what I wrote and I stand beside my words. But I also feel cool water flowing from around the rock. We must continue client education, but we must also allow our clients to educate us, listening to each other. If we are truly to build a bridge, we must meet each other in the river with our tools.

Filed Under: clients, conferences, customer service, education, global health, interpreters, interpreting, language access, LEP patients, medical interpreting

Is Our Industry Disconnected from Clients?

March 31, 2010 By 39 Comments

There is a disconnect–a divide. The difference between what we know and what our clients know is vast and the gulf that lies between us is insurmountable alone.

This is how I felt walking away from the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference. Held February 28th, its global health track featured leaders from international pharmaceutical companies, the Pentagon, the Obama administration–even George W’s daughter sat a panel under her Global Health Corps role. These, supposedly, were the world’s greatest minds on global health and social enterprise, with Harvard‘s reputation fully stacked behind them. But when it came to language services, they didn‘t know jack.

Here’s what made me realize this:

I was sitting in the back row listening to a panel made up of Barbara Bush, the director of the International Health Specialist Program for the Pentagon (Lt Col Mylene Huynh), Merck’s director of global affairs (Kris Natarajan), Management Services for Health‘s CEO (Jono Quick), and two professors from the Harvard School of Public Health (Drs Jessica Cohen and Till Barnighausen). The topic was “Breaking the Silos: Collaborations That Impact Complex Global Health Issues.” According to the program summary, the session’s goal was to bring together people and information from different fields, all with the goal of improving global health.

When it came time for Q&A, I raised my hand. “People don’t heal if they don’t understand,” I said. “The rest of the world does not speak English.” I then asked what we could do as a language industry to help connect with the global health one.

There was a long pause. Too long. Then Lt Col Huynh from the Pentagon spoke. Bilinguals and heritage speakers need to learn medical terminology. Sure, I thought, that’s a given. The military, she claimed, does not have systems in place to teach medical linguists medical language terms. Okay. Fair enough. She’s acknowledged their need and is speaking out. That, we can address; lessons, we can do.

But then Harvard’s Dr Barnighausen spoke up. And his response made me wonder what I’ve been doing with the last four years of my life, what our industry has been doing the last ten. He told a story about the one time he had worked with a “translator.” He asked the “translator” to ask the patient if his stomach hurt. The “translator” and the patient had a long back and forth conversation before the “translator” said, “No.” Dr Barnighausen’s reaction was to stop working with translators (which is good, as he needs interpreters instead) because “they’re all like that.”

I wanted to weep. I sincerely and utterly wanted to weep. The moderator went on to the next question while I sat there in shock. The camera Harvard was using to record it all (Harvard, conveniently enough, was unable to locate the video upon request) panned away from me and back toward the panel as they continued, but I didn‘t hear a word. I was too in shock. This “expert,” this Dr Barnighausen, wasn’t an expert on language‘s crucial role in health care at all.

This was Harvard. These people were supposed to know what they were doing.

After the session, I ran to the front to try and catch Dr Barnighausen. If, for some reason, our entire industry, the multiple associations that we have, the whole of both certification movements, had not been able to reach him, I would. But I didn‘t. The moderator carted him away before we had the chance to talk. I did get to speak with Lt Col Huynh, though. I told her how glad I was she articulated her answer so clearly, how much I appreciated the information. I told her how much Dr Barnighausen’s remarks had pained me, then what she said pained me even more. “But he’s right. They’re all like that.”

I immediately started gushing about the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care, its code of ethics, the certification for medical interpreters expected this fall. “You mean there are ethics?” she said, “This is a profession?”

This woman works for the Pentagon. She is in charge of our entire military’s medical efforts.

Clearly, there is a disconnect. It is wide and vast and sprawling.

As a language industry we are working hard–harder than ever before–to develop interpreting as a profession. We have more trade associations than ever before, more conferences than in years past, more training opportunities than before. But do they help? And, if so, whom?

There is a disconnect. When representatives of our own government, professors at the country’s purported top school–when our nation’s leaders have never heard of us–when they stand aghast at the sheer principle of our having ethics–when they think we’re all bilingual quacks who summarize–what are we doing wrong? Who are our efforts for?

Conference after conference, session after session, we talk, but to each other. We must talk to the client. We must talk to those who need to listen. Instead of teaching Bridging the Gap, we should be bridging the gap between us and our clients.

But how? In the past, this has fallen on the freelancer, on the LSP, on the person selling the services. That’s why we call it client education. But the LSP can not tackle this great gap by itself. The language industry is being squeezed. Rates are falling, client demands are going up. If the LSP refocuses its effort to focus on client education, the burning of resources will mean there is no LSP left. We need our associations to help us. Clients do not always believe freelancers or LSP’s because they assume we have something to sell. But if the associations would work together to sell clients on our industry, there’s no telling who or how many people we could help.

We must close the disconnect. We must stop thinking intrinsically and think externally. Educational PSA’s on YouTube, an NCIHC booth at global health conferences. Our associations must market this industry just as we LSP’s market our services. There should be no excuse for our nation’s leaders to know so little. Again, there should be no excuse for our nation’s leaders to know so little!

Where are we going wrong? How can we take this talking together and make it working together to educate the client? How do we bridge the disconnect?

Filed Under: associations, certification, clients, conferences, customer service, education, global health, interpreters, interpreting, medical interpreting, NCIHC, social media

Speak English Well, or You’ll Get a Ticket – Racism in Alabama?

June 22, 2009 By 2 Comments

Speak English Well, or You’ll Get a Ticket. That’s the title of a Jay Reeves article appearing in Saturday’s issue of the Atlanta Constitutional Journal. Sad part is, this title isn’t trying to be sensationalist, it’s being honest.

Trucker Manuel Castillo, a native Spanish speaker, was driving his rig through Alabama when he was pulled over by Alabama State Police for a routine check. Castillo, who speaks English on a third-grade level (like many other Alabamians, I fear), had a routine conversation with the officer about his license and registration, the truck inspection, and so on. According to the article, he didn’t forsee any problems (he’s been a trucker for 20 years and wasn’t speeding), until the officer gave him a $500 ticket for–you guessed it–speaking English poorly.

I encourage you all to read the article on the ACJ’s website. There will certainly be more details and information available there. This blog entry is basically my personal outlet for sharing the sheer absurdity of it all.

A $500 ticket for speaking English poorly? In Alabama? Come on, people.

This is sheer racism and discrimination. Even if the Alabama State Police are able to hide behind the federal law which requires anyone with a commercial driver’s license to speak English well enough to talk with police, they hopefully won’t be able to hide for long. I can understand the necessity of being able to deal with law enforcement. What I can’t understand is sheer hatred. Were those native to Alabama able to pass this requirement as well, we’d have no issue. But, according to the ACJ article, Mr Castillo was cited because he had an accent. An accent. In Alabama.

Now, I’m a Southerner. I love the South. My own brother lives in Huntsville. But, come on! The Alabama Department of Education admits to a 16.7% high school drop-out rate. According to the Department’s Alabama Reading Initiative presentation, available online, 15% of the State’s third-graders (the level at which Mr Castillo speaks English) tested below proficiency on state and national reading exams. When it comes to speaking English well enough to drive a semi, maybe Alabama State Police are pulling over the wrong people. If this is not a hate law, as it seems so much to me to be, could someone tell me how many native Alabamans who speak poor English have also received a $500 fine?

Filed Under: al, Alabama, civil rights, discrimination, education, ELL, English-language learners, government, law, racism

Training Students So They Can Leave?

May 25, 2009 By 3 Comments

This month’s issue of The Lane Report is dedicated to “Kentucky’s workforce getting smarter.” The feature article discusses how recession is (or isn’t) driving students into school and how Kentucky is one of only five states in the nation to have a drop in college enrollment.

What I found more interesting, however, is a table in the back of the issue supplied by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. It lists the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by public colleges in Kentucky by subject. I was very surprised to see that foreign language BA’s were up. With an average that had been 95.2 foreign language graduates per year for 1999-2007, the Commonwealth’s public colleges awarded 195 foreign language BA’s in 2008.

While on the surface, this seems like a good thing, my question is, are we preparing them for nothing? Yes, there is a great deal you can do in Kentucky with a degree in foreign language. In addition to translating and interpreting, you can work in government, social service, tourism, journalism, and the list goes on. The jolly old fall-back I always heard was “You can teach.” And of course, the more successful graduates are always welcome to come apply to work for me. The jobs are there. And while the Kentuckians stepping out this spring to apply for them are, as The Lane Report puts it, getting smarter, is Kentucky?

Today, I lost my interpreting coordinator to Ohio. A talented employee with a true passion for learning, she and her fiance wanted to pursue PhD’s and couldn’t get them in Kentucky. I know, I know, you CAN get a PhD in Kentucky. But can you get one in Spanish? Nope. Sorry, Charlie. No PhD’s in Spanish or French or German or in any other language for that matter. Simply put, if you want to learn a language at that level, Kentucky’s universities can’t help you. In an economy striving to educate its workforce for survival, one of my best employees is having to leave the state in order to further her education. And now I’m trying to fill a position that wouldn’t have even been open if Kentucky had offered my employee the opportunity to learn.

I understand the Commonwealth is doing all it can. I understand you can’t be the best at everything. But I also understand that if these 195 students, plus their equivalents from private schools like Centre and Asbury, can’t keep learning what they love best, they will learn it elsewhere. This is what smart people do: they go where they can grow.

So, what next Lane Report? Now that Kentucky’s workforce has gotten smarter, what will Kentucky do to keep them?

Filed Under: bachelor's, brain drain, careers, colleges, degrees, education, foreign language, graduates, Kentucky, Ky, Lane Report, magazines, PhD, students, YP

12th Grader Shapes Translation History?

May 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I don’t know if anyone in the Millburn School District (New Jersey) had heard of machine translation before they met Hayden Metsky, but I’m sure they all have now.

According to yesterday’s issue of the Independent Press, the local paper there in Millburn, New Jersey–wherever that is, the 12th grade Metsky and his teacher, Paul Gilmore, won an all-expense paid trip to Reno Nevada for the International Science and Engineering Fair. “As a finalist in the North Jersey Regional Science Fair, the preliminary competition for the ISEF, Mr. Metsky and three other students won trips for themselves and a teacher to the finals…He was also a finalist in the 2009 Intel Science Talent Search and in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.”

Young Metsky’s project? “Improving Statistical Machine Translation Through Template-based Phrase-table Extensions,” a title even I don’t understand. And, from what I gathered from the Independent Press report, neither did the journalist who wrote the article. Only stating that the project “involves a method of improving translation between world languages [and that Metsky] created software aimed at increasing the accuracy of automated computer translation, called machine translation,” the article doesn’t discuss Metsky’s project itself, only what machine translation is, something most people who care about the topic already know.

I personally would like to learn more about the student’s project. Any effort to improve machine translation can only be a good thing, if not for the industry, then at least for the world. And the advancements have got to come from somewhere. To quote Common Sense Advisory guru, Renato Beninatto, a bit out of context, “Nothing will change until we keep trying to out-Trados Trados. Innovation requires paradigm shift to collaboration & real open source.” Maybe Mr Metsky, then, is exactly what this industry needs. We grown-ups tend to have our politics, if not our corporate maneuverings, and I think it’s really cool, for lack of a better word, that the latest advancement I’ve heard of has come from some kid in New Jersey.

Not to mention the fact that one of the top prizes in a recent science and engineering competition had to do with translation.

Filed Under: advancements, competitions, education, human translation, machine translation, MT, science, software, TM, Trados, translation, translation memory

Civil Rights in Schools: Whose Issue Is It?

May 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Much to my chagrin, I’ve only recently learned of Horne v Flores, a case that began in Arizona that has now reached the Supreme Court, having been heard on April 20th. In the legal works, so to speak, for 17 years, the case began with an English language learner (ELL) named Miriam Flores who was enrolled in public school in Nogales, Arizona.

According to the SCOTUS website, a group of parents and students filed suit on behalf of Miss Flores and other students learning English, claiming the district had “fail[ed] to take ‘appropriate action’ to overcome learning barriers for ELL students.” In other words, they felt like these children weren’t being given a fair shot because they were not native speakers of English.

Whether they were or they weren’t treated fairly is now for the Supreme Court to decide, but where my question lies concerning this case is in the legislation that classifies the discrimination.

Citing “specific ELL requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001″ and the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974 (EEOA), the group’s attorneys made a strong enough of a case to win in district court. But what I’m wondering in all of this is where’s Title VI come into play?

I’ve spent a good part of my evening tonight looking over the SCOTUS site and reading different reports on the Horne v Flores hearing. To me, if the discrimination happened the way the plantiffs say it did, then we have a clear violation of Title VI, which states that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be
denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any
program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” So, if these students were discriminated against because of their language (which is certainly linked to national origin) and since public schools do receive federal funding, how does Title VI not apply?

I realize this is a translating and interpreting blog, but when rights are chiseled away in one place, they tend to quickly be chiseled away in another. And Title VI certainly affects translators and interpreters to a profound and notable degree, if for no other reason than it guarantees we’ll be required. So, I thought you, my dear readers, might find this interesting all the same.

Tell me what you think. Whose issue is it? Simply that of education legislators or that of the nation’s civil rights laws as a whole?

Filed Under: civil rights, discrimination, education, ELL, English-language learners, Horne v Flores, Supreme Court