Poll: Are schools in your area staffed with translators/interpreters?
Лице кое објавува дискусија: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ПЕРСОНАЛ НА СТРАНИЦАТА
May 21, 2025

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Are schools in your area staffed with translators/interpreters?".

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Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Португалија
Local time: 20:51
Член (2007)
англиски на португалски
+ ...
Other May 21, 2025

In Portugal, some schools have full-time sign language interpreters, and in schools where many students are children of immigrants, there is such a wide variety of nationalities (Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Romania, Russia, Angola, India, Ukraine, Guinea-Bissau, Peru, Guinea Conakry, Vietnam, etc.) that it is impossible to have interpreters for every nationality, but the Ministry of Education has given the green light to 319 schools to go ahead with hiring cultural mediators to support ... See more
In Portugal, some schools have full-time sign language interpreters, and in schools where many students are children of immigrants, there is such a wide variety of nationalities (Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Romania, Russia, Angola, India, Ukraine, Guinea-Bissau, Peru, Guinea Conakry, Vietnam, etc.) that it is impossible to have interpreters for every nationality, but the Ministry of Education has given the green light to 319 schools to go ahead with hiring cultural mediators to support foreign students.Collapse


 
Abdi Muhumed
Abdi Muhumed  Identity Verified
Кенија
Local time: 22:51
англиски на сомалиски
+ ...
Yes they are staffed. May 21, 2025

In Kenya, the ministry of education has trained over 10,000 teachers every year. Out of this three quarter of them learn interpretation of sign language where they pursued different levels in University... Postgraduate, undergraduate and masters.

Maria Laura Curzi
 
Maria Laura Curzi
Maria Laura Curzi  Identity Verified
Аргентина
Local time: 16:51
англиски на шпански
+ ...
Other May 21, 2025

I think we might have more emigrants than immigrants here due to the permanent economic crisis.

The frequent immigrants come from other LATAM countries, so they already speak Spanish and need no interpretation to understand it. Much of them even use lunfardo words or local slang.

We have a recent migration wave from Ukraine and Russia, so public schools added Russian to the ELSI program (ELSI means Spanish as a Se
... See more
I think we might have more emigrants than immigrants here due to the permanent economic crisis.

The frequent immigrants come from other LATAM countries, so they already speak Spanish and need no interpretation to understand it. Much of them even use lunfardo words or local slang.

We have a recent migration wave from Ukraine and Russia, so public schools added Russian to the ELSI program (ELSI means Spanish as a Second Language for Inclusion) > https://buenosaires.gob.ar/espanol-como-lengua-segunda-para-la-inclusion-elsi that has information in several languages, including Argentine Sign Language.

Then, personally, the few times that I spoke with families coming from Russia used English.
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Philip Lees
Philip Lees  Identity Verified
Грција
Local time: 22:51
грчки на англиски
Surmise May 22, 2025

I don't know this for certain, but I believe that the schools in my area are staffed with teachers.

Lingua 5B
Peter Simon
Zea_Mays
Josephine Cassar
expressisverbis
Mario Chávez
Charlotte Spinetta
 
Zea_Mays
Zea_Mays  Identity Verified
Италија
Local time: 21:51
англиски на германски
+ ...
no May 22, 2025

Schools here rather focus on empowering the kids through language promotion - makes also more sense.
A 'problem' is in some cases kids not speaking the language used at the school (German, Italian or - rather rarely - Ladin), but interpreters wouldn't help.
(I wonder what the role of translators would be?)


Josephine Cassar
 
Marjolein Snippe
Marjolein Snippe  Identity Verified
Холандија
Local time: 21:51
англиски на холандски
+ ...
Communication with parents May 22, 2025

Zea_Mays wrote:


(I wonder what the role of translators would be?)


Schools here don't usually employ translators or interpreters.
In schools with many children from immigrant families, I could imagine both would be useful for communication with parents. I used to help a lady from the DRC learn Dutch and in the process told her that no, her 12-year-old would not be able to select his secondary school all by himself, she and/or her husband would have to help him. I am fairly sure they received letters about this from the school, but these would have been in Dutch. As they would have been addressed to the parents, I don't think the boy would have been able to explain clearly to his parents what was expected from them.

The same thing probably applies to any other letter or email addressed to the parents.


 
Lingua 5B
Lingua 5B  Identity Verified
Босна и Херцеговина
Local time: 21:51
англиски на француски
+ ...
Parent-teacher meetings May 22, 2025

Zea_Mays wrote:

Schools here rather focus on empowering the kids through language promotion - makes also more sense.
A 'problem' is in some cases kids not speaking the language used at the school (German, Italian or - rather rarely - Ladin), but interpreters wouldn't help.
(I wonder what the role of translators would be?)


Yes, for parents. For instance, in parent-teacher meetings. Sometimes there are hearing kids with deaf parents, then technically the kid could interpret between parents and the teacher (as they are often sign language-spoken language bilinguial) but there is a bias, and hence family members are not allowed to interpret in official meetings. That’s one example requiring a sign language interpreter.

To answer the question - no, the schools in my area definitely do not employ interpreters. I assume they may hire them on an as-needed basis.


 
Zea_Mays
Zea_Mays  Identity Verified
Италија
Local time: 21:51
англиски на германски
+ ...
double-edged sword May 22, 2025

Marjolein Snippe wrote:

Zea_Mays wrote:

(I wonder what the role of translators would be?)


Schools here don't usually employ translators or interpreters.
In schools with many children from immigrant families, I could imagine both would be useful for communication with parents.


It's been a time ago when I read about some studies around this topic. Providing interpretation services turned out to be a double-edged sword - it eases communication at the top level, but in the long term it tends to keep adults from learning the local language.
In my region, it would also be impossible to have interpreters and translators for all the new languages - there are people from Albania, India, Pakistan, Romania, China, Ukraine, various North African countries, the Philippines, Kurds and many more. Neither does English help, as not all speak it.


 
MollyRose
MollyRose  Identity Verified
Соединети Американски Држави
Local time: 14:51
англиски на шпански
+ ...
Other May 27, 2025

In our large school district, there are translator-interpreters assigned to many of the schools, with about 15 languages represented. Some of them are at one school and others are assigned to several schools, depending on the language populations. When a school needs a legal, complicated, or long translation or an interpretation for a meeting outside of these assignments, they can send a request to the English Learner office and a specialist will do the job.

The main purpose for thi
... See more
In our large school district, there are translator-interpreters assigned to many of the schools, with about 15 languages represented. Some of them are at one school and others are assigned to several schools, depending on the language populations. When a school needs a legal, complicated, or long translation or an interpretation for a meeting outside of these assignments, they can send a request to the English Learner office and a specialist will do the job.

The main purpose for this service is for the parents, not the students. Communications from the schools or district office to parents, handbooks, flyers, forms, legal info, callouts and emails, etc. The meetings covered are usually for special ed, parent-teacher conferences, behavior problems, etc., and also to interpret for meetings for groups of parents.

To fill in any gaps (mostly over-the-phone interpretation), they also have a contract with a translation agency.
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Maria Laura Curzi
 


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Poll: Are schools in your area staffed with translators/interpreters?






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