Accurate education translation is crucial for non-English speaking families, especially when students require individualized education plans (IEPs). IEP translation is not only legally required, but it helps to support students and bring cultural diversity to communities.
Why Accurate IEP Translation Makes All the Difference
Teamwork among families and schools is crucial to help students reach their educational goals. Studies show that parental involvement increases both academic performance and social-emotional skills.
Unfortunately this can be a struggle for families if English is not their primary language. While a student may speak English fluently, their parents may not, which leads to a number of communication breakdowns. This is especially true when it comes to IEPs, which may include terms the family is unfamiliar with.
Properly translated IEPs (and providing an interpreter for review meetings) allow parents to ask questions and fully understand the education goals and support the school provides. When parents are aware of the skills their child is working to improve, they can continue the learning process at home.
The involvement of an IEP translation partner allows parents to communicate throughout the year with the educators and specialists that work with their child, which ultimately contributes to the student’s success.
IEP Translation Shortcuts Don’t Pay Off for Schools
Relying on an English-speaking student to translate for their parents can cause problems, as described in this article.
Automated translation tools, like Google Translate, are wonderful when educators are in a pinch to get a sense for what a parent is trying to communicate. However these tools are limited when it comes to formal documents like IEPs. Here’s why:
- IEP plans are meant to be individualized for a specific student. IEPs outline current academic performance and annual goals for the student’s academic progress. Automated translation tools often fall short with more specific content of this nature.
- Google also doesn’t have enough experience with special education terminology. In the special education space, acronyms and curriculum-specific terms are often used. Google Translate lacks the ability to make these words understandable in other languages.
- Google Translate doesn’t perform well in certain languages. While Google Translate has become fairly attuned for languages like Spanish or French, it lags in other languages like Farsi, Arabic or Japanese. Automated translation tools Google Translate also do not translate local nuances and idioms accurately enough.
High-quality IEP translation and interpretation allows parents to be involved in the education process and protect the rights of their child.
Better Together: Building Stronger Communities
Greater parent buy-in has a positive impact on the school. It helps parents feel welcome, builds trust and encourages them to get involved both at school and at home – all of which supports greater student achievement and a collaborative parent-school relationship.
By providing quality resources, schools help students develop the skills they need to be active participants in the world at large. This support helps students bring their unique cultural identities to the communities they call home, and later to the workforce.
Schools can help students excel by providing the best resources available, which includes accurate IEP translation services.
Choosing an IEP Translation and Interpretation Service for Your School
Alboum understands that IEP translation leads to greater student success.
We’ve worked with hundreds of school districts and thousands of individual schools across the country. Our linguists understand the language and terminology for IEPs, along with:
- graduation requirements
- workforce readiness
- report cards
- curriculum and Common Core
- bonds and local accountability plans.
With nearly 100 languages available for IEP translation, Alboum makes the process easy without rush fees or project management costs.
Request a quote today to see if Alboum can help your school.
