Discover how competitive gamification in ESL classrooms boosts student motivation, confidence, and engagement. Explore practical ESL gamification strategies that make vocabulary learning fun, inclusive, and effective.
La gamificación competitiva en aulas de ESL, tal como se expone en este artículo, puede tener un impacto positivo en la motivación del alumnado cuando se aplica de forma equilibrada e inclusiva. Los elementos de juego, como los retos y las recompensas, aumentan el interés y la participación, especialmente en contextos de aprendizaje diversos. No obstante, el artículo también invita a reflexionar sobre la necesidad de adaptar la competencia a las características del grupo, evitando que se convierta en un factor desmotivador para algunos estudiantes. Cuando la gamificación se orienta al progreso personal y al aprendizaje colaborativo, puede convertirse en una estrategia eficaz para fomentar la implicación y el compromiso en el aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera.
Aligarh, May 17 (TNA) Cross-cultural communication specialists, ELT experts, linguists and faculty members explored the areas of study in interdisciplinary context such as English language teaching methodologies, constructive approaches to teaching, inclusivity, cross-cultural communication, AI generated teachings and methods, pedagogies related to methodologies, cultures, regions, and needs, knowledge systems, appropriate pedagogy and assessment, and addressing learning crisis, during the three-day international conference, organized by the Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
The conference entitled “appropriate teaching methodologies in interdisciplinary context: mapping the sociolinguistics diversity”, was sponsored by ICSSR, New Delhi. During the valedictory session, Prof Imtiaz Hasnain, Chair- Professor, MANUU, Hyderabad, talked about “linguistic entrepreneurship, ethno-linguistics identity, and neo-liberal imagination”. Prof Hasnain also focused upon how the English language has been developed as a language of bread and butter, and hence there is more demand for English language teaching programs. The session was chaired by Prof Mohammad Asim Siddiqui, Department of English, AMU.
A round table discussion on the topic “methodological diversity in classroom: contexts and perspectives”, by Prof A.R. Kidwai, (Director, K.A. Nizami Centre for Quranic Studies, AMU and Former Professor, Department of English, AMU), along with Prof Imtiaz Hasnain, Prof M.E. Veda Sharan (EFLU, Hyderabad), and Prof Shobha Satyanath (Former Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi) brought to focus the methods, linguistic and cultural diversities, and the role of teachers in teaching in the multilingual discourse community.
The discussants spoke about the content subjects; how content has a kind of connectivity with methodology, scale of diversity at the level of teaching and teacher, language learning, and at the level of language culture. Delivering a plenary lecture, on the topic “New World Englishes: what’s the fuss all about”, Prof Shobha Satyanath discussed the internal diversity of Englishes which is often overlooked by the dominant discourses.
Prof M.E. Veda Sharan, spoke on the topic “The Bitzer in the Classroom: imaginative ways out of hard times”, where he constructed the comparison between literature and language. Professor Chris Anson, Department of English, North California State University, USA, spoke on “writing across the curriculum: strategies for language development and deep learning.” In his Valedictory address, Prof Avinash Kumar Singh, Head, Department of Educational Policy, NIEPA, New Delhi, said that such conferences act as a driving force in the realm of interdisciplinary studies.
While talking about the “Socio-linguistic polarity in education of the disadvantaged: policy perspectives and practices”, he expressed the concern of learning disadvantages as in the case of remote tribal language areas, they cannot access the home language because it’s not the medium of instruction. In such cases, the dropout rate is very high, as suggested by the World Bank reports.
Discussing the idea of equity and justice, Prof Mirza Asmer Beg, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, explained the relevance of the idea of multiculturalism. The conference had 61 offline and 120 online paper reading sessions, and more than 130 research papers were presented at the Conference on topics ranging from multiculturalism, sociolinguistic diversity, AI and English Language Teaching, sociology, and second language acquisition, among others.
"Aligarh, May 17 (TNA) Cross-cultural communication specialists, ELT experts, linguists and faculty members explored the areas of study in interdisciplinary context such as English language teaching methodologies, constructive approaches to teaching, inclusivity, cross-cultural communication, AI generated teachings and methods, pedagogies related to methodologies, cultures, regions, and needs, knowledge systems, appropriate pedagogy and assessment, and addressing learning crisis, during the three-day international conference, organized by the Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
The conference entitled “appropriate teaching methodologies in interdisciplinary context: mapping the sociolinguistics diversity”, was sponsored by ICSSR, New Delhi. During the valedictory session, Prof Imtiaz Hasnain, Chair- Professor, MANUU, Hyderabad, talked about “linguistic entrepreneurship, ethno-linguistics identity, and neo-liberal imagination”. Prof Hasnain also focused upon how the English language has been developed as a language of bread and butter, and hence there is more demand for English language teaching programs. The session was chaired by Prof Mohammad Asim Siddiqui, Department of English, AMU.
A round table discussion on the topic “methodological diversity in classroom: contexts and perspectives”, by Prof A.R. Kidwai, (Director, K.A. Nizami Centre for Quranic Studies, AMU and Former Professor, Department of English, AMU), along with Prof Imtiaz Hasnain, Prof M.E. Veda Sharan (EFLU, Hyderabad), and Prof Shobha Satyanath (Former Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi) brought to focus the methods, linguistic and cultural diversities, and the role of teachers in teaching in the multilingual discourse community.
The discussants spoke about the content subjects; how content has a kind of connectivity with methodology, scale of diversity at the level of teaching and teacher, language learning, and at the level of language culture. Delivering a plenary lecture, on the topic “New World Englishes: what’s the fuss all about”, Prof Shobha Satyanath discussed the internal diversity of Englishes which is often overlooked by the dominant discourses.
Prof M.E. Veda Sharan, spoke on the topic “The Bitzer in the Classroom: imaginative ways out of hard times”, where he constructed the comparison between literature and language. Professor Chris Anson, Department of English, North California State University, USA, spoke on “writing across the curriculum: strategies for language development and deep learning.” In his Valedictory address, Prof Avinash Kumar Singh, Head, Department of Educational Policy, NIEPA, New Delhi, said that such conferences act as a driving force in the realm of interdisciplinary studies.
While talking about the “Socio-linguistic polarity in education of the disadvantaged: policy perspectives and practices”, he expressed the concern of learning disadvantages as in the case of remote tribal language areas, they cannot access the home language because it’s not the medium of instruction. In such cases, the dropout rate is very high, as suggested by the World Bank reports.
Discussing the idea of equity and justice, Prof Mirza Asmer Beg, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, explained the relevance of the idea of multiculturalism. The conference had 61 offline and 120 online paper reading sessions, and more than 130 research papers were presented at the Conference on topics ranging from multiculturalism, sociolinguistic diversity, AI and English Language Teaching, sociology, and second language acquisition, among others."
Este artículo destaca la relevancia de la comunicación intercultural y los enfoques interdisciplinarios en la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras, aspectos que influyen directamente en la motivación del alumnado. Integrar diferentes disciplinas y perspectivas culturales permite que el aprendizaje del idioma se perciba como una herramienta real de comunicación y no solo como un contenido académico.
Además, el contacto con contextos interculturales auténticos favorece la curiosidad y el interés del estudiante, incrementando su implicación en el proceso de aprendizaje. Cuando el alumnado comprende el valor del idioma como medio para interactuar en entornos diversos, su motivación y compromiso con el aprendizaje de la lengua extranjera aumentan de manera significativa.
How Can VR Technology Facilitate Second Language Acquisition? Bilingual speakers make up approximately 43% of the world’s population.
By Ethan Hui Published September 14, 2022
Is life too short to learn a new language? VR might be a gamechanger in second language acquisition.
Bilingual speakers make up approximately 43% of the world’s population. It is almost guaranteed that you have previously spoken with someone who is competent in speaking multiple languages. You might wonder, how do they do it so effortlessly? If you have had experiences learning a new language, you know it is the opposite of effortless. The process is painful, exhausting and frustrating—so frustrating that many of us might just give up because there are too many grammar rules to memorize. So kudos to you if you have mastered various languages! But what if there’s a simpler way to acquire a language… Well, virtual reality (VR) might be your answer. Here’s how:
Providing an immersive language-learning environment
We all know it is vital to immerse yourself in a language if you want to speak the language fluently. Through interactions with native speakers, learners can receive many language development opportunities, such as listening, speaking and feedback. However, due to geographical constraints, learners may not have the opportunity to communicate with native speakers of their target language. VR technology is thus an excellent solution to this problem, as it can provide users with an immersive language-learning environment to up their language learning game.
VR technology allows learners to enter the virtual world and interact with other people around the globe without traveling to another country. For language learners, this means they can surround themselves in an “authentic” language context, thereby boosting their reading, listening and speaking skills. VR platforms have also been proven to increase learners’ overall language abilities across all linguistic levels, making VR technology truly beneficial for second language acquisition (SLA).
Motivating language learners
Apart from interaction and immersion, the learner’s motivation is another crucial factor in learning a new language. To effectively learn a second language, learners need to be motivated by their goals, such as to achieve fluency in English to live in an English-speaking country (an instrumental motivation) or to become a target community member (integrative motivation).
Counter to our assumption, studying a language with textbooks in the classroom is not the only way to achieve these goals. After all, we can’t be purely incentivized by our own set of goals; the means of learning a language needs to be motivating and intriguing as well, and gaming can do just that.
As per a study, playing commercial digital video games can increase learning motivation in SLA. The reason is simple: it is more engaging and interesting than memorizing vocabulary from a textbook. With video games, players can pick up and practice everyday language rather than complicated, academic-oriented vocabularies through communicating with other players. Having the opportunity to use the language in such a setting will encourage learners to speak and use the language more confidently.
However, this is not to say that we should replace textbooks with video games. As per the same study, classical educational setting is still necessary in SLA, and the increase in language learning motivation as a result of playing video games can transfer to classroom learning. In other words, video games can facilitate language learning at schools, even if language learning is not the games’ primary purpose.
With the rising popularity of VR technology, we can expect more and more VR games and headsets will be released in the market. Compared to commercial video games, these VR games can offer an even more engaging and aesthetic gaming experience, such as better graphics and audiovisual effects, which can further enhance motivation. If VR games are to be integrated into language classes, maybe we will be seeing fewer students dozing off during class and more being excited to go to class!
Examples of VR language learning apps
In 2021, the global language learning market was worth US$14.2 billion, and it is projected to surpass US$28.5 billion by 2028. Surely, we will be seeing more VR language learning apps in the market soon. For now, if you are learning a new language or considering doing so, here are three apps you should check out :
ImmerseMe
This VR platform helps learners increase their fluency in their second language by simulating authentic and real-life scenarios, such as buying a baguette in Paris or a bento box in Tokyo, where they have to interact with native speakers. It offers more than 3,000 real-life scenarios across nine languages, i.e. English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek and Indonesian.
Mondly VR
The VR app which was acquired by UK education giant Pearson in April this year. Similar to ImmerseMe, the VR app provides an opportunity for users to learn more than 30 languages through interacting with a virtual language teacher. After each interaction, users will receive pronunciation feedback as well as vocabulary suggestions. It also has an augmented reality (AR) app in which their virtual language teachers can appear in your living room through your phone camera.
Panolingo
Panolingo is a VR app that uses a gamification approach where users can collect points and bonuses from doing tasks or competing with friends. An example of said task is following instruction prompts, such as identifying what a refrigerator is in the user’s kitchen. With the gamification of the VR app, learners can be more motivated in picking up a second language via a relatively more interesting and incentivized approach.
All in all, interaction and motivation are two vital factors of an effective SLA. VR technology’s ability to create a virtual environment that can motivate learners and provide them with lifelike and authentic interactions makes it especially valuable in the SLA market. With all the benefits of learning a language via VR platforms and the great potential of the language learning market, we will be seeing more tech solutions to help language learners around the world master as many languages as possible.
Also read:
Why Computers Can’t Master Human Language -for Now What is Natural Language Processing? LingoAce, Singapore-based online language learning platform, raises US$6 million in Series A+ led by Sequoia Capital India
"Is life too short to learn a new language? VR might be a gamechanger in second language acquisition.
Bilingual speakers make up approximately 43% of the world’s population. It is almost guaranteed that you have previously spoken with someone who is competent in speaking multiple languages. You might wonder, how do they do it so effortlessly? If you have had experiences learning a new language, you know it is the opposite of effortless. The process is painful, exhausting and frustrating—so frustrating that many of us might just give up because there are too many grammar rules to memorize. So kudos to you if you have mastered various languages! But what if there’s a simpler way to acquire a language… Well, virtual reality (VR) might be your answer. Here’s how:
Providing an immersive language-learning environment
We all know it is vital to immerse yourself in a language if you want to speak the language fluently. Through interactions with native speakers, learners can receive many language development opportunities, such as listening, speaking and feedback. However, due to geographical constraints, learners may not have the opportunity to communicate with native speakers of their target language. VR technology is thus an excellent solution to this problem, as it can provide users with an immersive language-learning environment to up their language learning game.
VR technology allows learners to enter the virtual world and interact with other people around the globe without traveling to another country. For language learners, this means they can surround themselves in an “authentic” language context, thereby boosting their reading, listening and speaking skills. VR platforms have also been proven to increase learners’ overall language abilities across all linguistic levels, making VR technology truly beneficial for second language acquisition (SLA).
Motivating language learners
Apart from interaction and immersion, the learner’s motivation is another crucial factor in learning a new language. To effectively learn a second language, learners need to be motivated by their goals, such as to achieve fluency in English to live in an English-speaking country (an instrumental motivation) or to become a target community member (integrative motivation).
Counter to our assumption, studying a language with textbooks in the classroom is not the only way to achieve these goals. After all, we can’t be purely incentivized by our own set of goals; the means of learning a language needs to be motivating and intriguing as well, and gaming can do just that.
As per a study, playing commercial digital video games can increase learning motivation in SLA. The reason is simple: it is more engaging and interesting than memorizing vocabulary from a textbook. With video games, players can pick up and practice everyday language rather than complicated, academic-oriented vocabularies through communicating with other players. Having the opportunity to use the language in such a setting will encourage learners to speak and use the language more confidently.
However, this is not to say that we should replace textbooks with video games. As per the same study, classical educational setting is still necessary in SLA, and the increase in language learning motivation as a result of playing video games can transfer to classroom learning. In other words, video games can facilitate language learning at schools, even if language learning is not the games’ primary purpose.
With the rising popularity of VR technology, we can expect more and more VR games and headsets will be released in the market. Compared to commercial video games, these VR games can offer an even more engaging and aesthetic gaming experience, such as better graphics and audiovisual effects, which can further enhance motivation. If VR games are to be integrated into language classes, maybe we will be seeing fewer students dozing off during class and more being excited to go to class!
Examples of VR language learning apps
In 2021, the global language learning market was worth US$14.2 billion, and it is projected to surpass US$28.5 billion by 2028. Surely, we will be seeing more VR language learning apps in the market soon. For now, if you are learning a new language or considering doing so, here are three apps you should check out :
ImmerseMe
This VR platform helps learners increase their fluency in their second language by simulating authentic and real-life scenarios, such as buying a baguette in Paris or a bento box in Tokyo, where they have to interact with native speakers. It offers more than 3,000 real-life scenarios across nine languages, i.e. English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Greek and Indonesian.
Mondly VR
The VR app which was acquired by UK education giant Pearson in April this year. Similar to ImmerseMe, the VR app provides an opportunity for users to learn more than 30 languages through interacting with a virtual language teacher. After each interaction, users will receive pronunciation feedback as well as vocabulary suggestions. It also has an augmented reality (AR) app in which their virtual language teachers can appear in your living room through your phone camera.
Panolingo
Panolingo is a VR app that uses a gamification approach where users can collect points and bonuses from doing tasks or competing with friends. An example of said task is following instruction prompts, such as identifying what a refrigerator is in the user’s kitchen. With the gamification of the VR app, learners can be more motivated in picking up a second language via a relatively more interesting and incentivized approach.
All in all, interaction and motivation are two vital factors of an effective SLA. VR technology’s ability to create a virtual environment that can motivate learners and provide them with lifelike and authentic interactions makes it especially valuable in the SLA market. With all the benefits of learning a language via VR platforms and the great potential of the language learning market, we will be seeing more tech solutions to help language learners around the world master as many languages as possible. "
For emerging bilingual students, using a VR headset could be a game-changer when it comes to second language acquisition. It is well known that it is vital to immerse yourself in a language if you want to speak the language fluently. Interacting with native speakers helps students to develop language quicker because it provides opportunities, such as listening, speaking, and feedback. However, geographical constraints limit personal interactions. VR headsets could be the answer. VR technology can now create virtual environments in which a learner can experience interacting with native speakers in a gamified way. Of course, the traditional text is still essential, but VR can now make that text come alive.
El empleo de la realidad virtual en la adquisición de segundas lenguas ofrece un gran potencial para incrementar la motivación del alumnado al situarlo en contextos comunicativos inmersivos y cercanos a situaciones reales. Al interactuar en entornos virtuales, los estudiantes pueden practicar la lengua de forma significativa, lo que favorece la implicación emocional y reduce el miedo a cometer errores.
Cuando la tecnología se utiliza con un objetivo pedagógico claro, la realidad virtual se convierte en una herramienta eficaz para fomentar la participación activa y el compromiso del estudiante en el proceso de aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera.
AI-fueled technologies make communicating in other languages easier than ever, but it still can’t replace the transformative value of learning a new language.
"[W]hat’s the value of learning another language when AI can handle tourism phrases, casual conversation and city navigation?
The answer... lies not in fleeting encounters but in cultivating enduring capacities: curiosity, empathy, deeper understanding of others, the reshaping of identity and the promise of lasting cognitive growth."
"The Indian state where people are being beaten up for speaking the wrong language New rules for schools have ignited street protests and unrest, exposing a nationwide conflict over language and regional identity. Shahana Yasmin reports
Tuesday 15 July 2025 08:29 EDT
Maharashtra, long regarded as one of India’s most cosmopolitan states, has found itself reliving an old tension: a renewed battle over language.
In the last few months, a state government order mandating Hindi as the third language in primary schools has sparked not just political protests but also public violence. A rickshaw driver was assaulted after refusing to speak in the state language Marathi, a shopkeeper was slapped by political activists for using Hindi, and a bank employee was threatened for defending his use of Hindi and English.
At the heart of the unrest lies a 16 April education department resolution making Hindi compulsory as the third language from classes I to V in schools giving instruction in English and Marathi languages.
While state officials framed the policy as a routine implementation of the federal government’s National Education Policy 2020, which encourages education in the regional language, Hindi, and English under the “three-language formula”, critics saw it as part of a broader push by prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to elevate Hindi at the expense of regional languages.
Although the federal push to promote Hindi beyond the “Hindi belt” has faced opposition in many states, the backlash has been especially charged in Maharashtra.
The western state was born out of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement of the 1950s, a mass mobilisation demanding a separate province for Marathi speakers with Mumbai as its capital. The agitation, marked by mass street protests, hunger strikes and violent police crackdowns, led to the deaths of over 100 demonstrators before Maharashtra was finally carved out of the bilingual Bombay State in 1960.
Not surprisingly then, the new policy has struck a discordant note in a state where linguistic identity has long been deeply embedded in the social fabric. Many people view the introduction of compulsory Hindi not as a benign educational reform but as a renewed threat to that hard-won identity.
While the state’s BJP-led government initially downplayed the controversy, the backlash quickly escalated. Opposition parties, including the Shiv Sena UBT, the Congress, and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, accused the BJP of pushing a “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” agenda: shorthand for the Modi government’s concerted bid to promote Hindi and Hindu nationalism at the expense of India’s pluralistic character.
Varsha Gaikwad of the Congress party, a former state education minister, accused the BJP of “working systematically to weaken the Marathi language in its own homeland,” The New Indian Express reported.
Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray, longstanding political rivals, also voiced strong opposition to the Hindi mandate. The former referred to the new policy as a “language emergency” and said he “will not allow imposition of any language”. The latter, known for his party’s past campaigns against Hindi-speaking migrants, reiterated his stance that while Maharashtrians were Hindus, they did not accept Hindi imposition.
Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar initially defended the policy. Its critics had “nothing else to do”, he said while arguing that Hindi and English were useful across India. But Marathi, he emphasised, would remain Maharashtra’s primary language.
Federal home minister Amit Shah said last month that Indians should eventually “feel ashamed” to speak English, promoting native tongues instead.
The central government under Narendra Modi has consistently promoted Hindi as the national lingua franca, not only through educational reforms like the three-language policy but also symbolic changes.
Public schemes, for example, now bear Hindi titles like Mera Yuva Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. The colonial-era Indian Penal Code has been replaced with Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
But as the Maharashtra protests grew louder and violence more visible, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis reversed the mandate and announced it would be optional. He also formed a committee to review the policy’s implementation.
The resistance to “Hindi imposition” has echoed beyond Maharashtra. In Tamil Nadu, chief minister MK Stalin rejected the National Education Policy’s three-language formula and declared that the southern state was “ready for another language war” over what he called the central government’s attempt to impose Hindi.
Deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin warned the state would “never accept the New Education Policy or the imposition of Hindi in any form” and cast the opposition to it as an “ethnic struggle” to protect Tamil culture.
Fellow southern states Karnataka and Kerala have seen similar opposition. In Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, activists vandalised departure boards at the main airport over the omission of Kannada, the state language, while local governments mandated Kannada-first signage in public spaces.
India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. According to the 2011 census, there are 121 languages in active use and over 1,300 distinct mother tongues, although only 22 enjoy official status under the constitution.
Hindi is the most widely spoken language, used by roughly 43.6 per cent of the population, or 528 million people. Marathi is third with about 83 million speakers and Tamil ranks fifth with about 69 million speakers.
As Maharashtra braces for municipal elections, the language row underscores how swiftly cultural identity can become a political fault line.
"The Indian state where people are being beaten up for speaking the wrong language
New rules for schools have ignited street protests and unrest, exposing a nationwide conflict over language and regional identity. Shahana Yasmin reports
Tuesday 15 July 2025 08:29 EDT
Maharashtra, long regarded as one of India’s most cosmopolitan states, has found itself reliving an old tension: a renewed battle over language.
In the last few months, a state government order mandating Hindi as the third language in primary schools has sparked not just political protests but also public violence. A rickshaw driver was assaulted after refusing to speak in the state language Marathi, a shopkeeper was slapped by political activists for using Hindi, and a bank employee was threatened for defending his use of Hindi and English.
At the heart of the unrest lies a 16 April education department resolution making Hindi compulsory as the third language from classes I to V in schools giving instruction in English and Marathi languages.
While state officials framed the policy as a routine implementation of the federal government’s National Education Policy 2020, which encourages education in the regional language, Hindi, and English under the “three-language formula”, critics saw it as part of a broader push by prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to elevate Hindi at the expense of regional languages.
Although the federal push to promote Hindi beyond the “Hindi belt” has faced opposition in many states, the backlash has been especially charged in Maharashtra.
The western state was born out of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement of the 1950s, a mass mobilisation demanding a separate province for Marathi speakers with Mumbai as its capital. The agitation, marked by mass street protests, hunger strikes and violent police crackdowns, led to the deaths of over 100 demonstrators before Maharashtra was finally carved out of the bilingual Bombay State in 1960.
Not surprisingly then, the new policy has struck a discordant note in a state where linguistic identity has long been deeply embedded in the social fabric. Many people view the introduction of compulsory Hindi not as a benign educational reform but as a renewed threat to that hard-won identity.
While the state’s BJP-led government initially downplayed the controversy, the backlash quickly escalated. Opposition parties, including the Shiv Sena UBT, the Congress, and Sharad Pawar’s Nationalist Congress Party, accused the BJP of pushing a “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” agenda: shorthand for the Modi government’s concerted bid to promote Hindi and Hindu nationalism at the expense of India’s pluralistic character.
Varsha Gaikwad of the Congress party, a former state education minister, accused the BJP of “working systematically to weaken the Marathi language in its own homeland,” The New Indian Express reported.
Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena leader Raj Thackeray, longstanding political rivals, also voiced strong opposition to the Hindi mandate. The former referred to the new policy as a “language emergency” and said he “will not allow imposition of any language”. The latter, known for his party’s past campaigns against Hindi-speaking migrants, reiterated his stance that while Maharashtrians were Hindus, they did not accept Hindi imposition.
Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar initially defended the policy. Its critics had “nothing else to do”, he said while arguing that Hindi and English were useful across India. But Marathi, he emphasised, would remain Maharashtra’s primary language.
Federal home minister Amit Shah said last month that Indians should eventually “feel ashamed” to speak English, promoting native tongues instead.
The central government under Narendra Modi has consistently promoted Hindi as the national lingua franca, not only through educational reforms like the three-language policy but also symbolic changes.
Public schemes, for example, now bear Hindi titles like Mera Yuva Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. The colonial-era Indian Penal Code has been replaced with Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
But as the Maharashtra protests grew louder and violence more visible, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis reversed the mandate and announced it would be optional. He also formed a committee to review the policy’s implementation.
The resistance to “Hindi imposition” has echoed beyond Maharashtra. In Tamil Nadu, chief minister MK Stalin rejected the National Education Policy’s three-language formula and declared that the southern state was “ready for another language war” over what he called the central government’s attempt to impose Hindi.
Deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin warned the state would “never accept the New Education Policy or the imposition of Hindi in any form” and cast the opposition to it as an “ethnic struggle” to protect Tamil culture.
Fellow southern states Karnataka and Kerala have seen similar opposition. In Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka, activists vandalised departure boards at the main airport over the omission of Kannada, the state language, while local governments mandated Kannada-first signage in public spaces.
India is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. According to the 2011 census, there are 121 languages in active use and over 1,300 distinct mother tongues, although only 22 enjoy official status under the constitution.
Hindi is the most widely spoken language, used by roughly 43.6 per cent of the population, or 528 million people. Marathi is third with about 83 million speakers and Tamil ranks fifth with about 69 million speakers.
As Maharashtra braces for municipal elections, the language row underscores how swiftly cultural identity can become a political fault line.
What began as an administrative directive on school curriculum has grown into a broader referendum on who defines the cultural contours of a diverse and multilingual India.
"It has been just over two years since the public was introduced to OpenAI’s ChatGPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer). Since that seemingly innocuous day in November of 2022, the world has hit the gas pedal moving in every direction as the age of exploration has become available to all. In doing so, it is leaving large groups of skeptics, cynics, optimists, and opportunists in its wake. While many are moving as fast as possible to implement new technology, there is an equal number encouraging us to proceed with caution as there are still many unknowns. Answers to the questions of what AI is capable of and what can and should be controlled are still blurry at best."
AI-powered assessments may one day provide instant, objective feedback, enhance data-driven teaching decisions, ensure equitable evaluation, and free teachers from time-consuming grading.
King Sejong the Great invented Hangeul in 1443 with the goal of increasing literacy among commoners who had few chances to learn the logographic hanja, or Chinese characters.
Out of respect for the king's democratic intention and love for humanity, several projects were launched from the late 1990s onward to share the Korean alphabet with ethnic minorities in Asia, Africa and South America that did not have their own writing systems. Without a script, their languages were at the risk of disappearing, along with their oral cultures.
But today, many of these projects no longer exist. This situation demonstrates that it takes more than just linguists and the goodwill of patrons to get a population -- regardless of its size -- to adopt a completely foreign writing system, people involved with such projects told The Korea Herald.
Dying languages and Hangeul’s potential
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, mankind is living in a time of mass language extinction, with one indigenous language going extinct every two weeks. By 2100, nearly half of the approximately 7,000 languages spoken today could die out, it warns.
Against this backdrop, some Korean linguists recognized the potential of Hangeul as a tool to conserve endangered languages.
The first such initiative began in 1994 by Lee Hyun-bok, a professor emeritus of linguistics at Seoul National University, in a mountainous region of Thailand.
For almost a decade, the professor taught Hangeul to the Lahu tribe there, and after five years of research, devised a Hangeul-based writing system that can express the nasal sounds of their language.
In the 2000s, Jeon Kwang-jin, a professor of Chinese at Sungkyunkwan University, studied the languages of China’s ethnic minorities, and came up with Hangeul-based scripts for the Lhoba in 2002, the Oroqen in 2004, and the Ewenki in 2008.
In 2015, a group of Korean linguists completed a Hangeul-based script for a language spoken by the Aymara people, a population of about 2.8 million living in western Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile. It was done after three rounds of on-site research and analysis of the phonemes, lexicon and grammatical structure of Aymara over three years.
The Aymara language and Korean have completely different roots, but have a similar grammar structure, and consonants that come in three types – a voiced consonant, a voiceless consonant and an aspirated consonant.
The efforts, however, didn’t lead to a sweeping adoption of Hangeul in these regions.
"The Aymarans aren't using it,” linguist Kwon Jae-il, who had led the Aymara project, told over the phone. “They have been using the Roman alphabet, and it must have been difficult to shift (to Hangeul)."
Cia-Cia project
A more lasting and larger-scale propagation of Hangeul took place on an island in Indonesia.
In 2009, a group of scholars called the Hunmin jeongeum Society proposed a project to introduce Hangeul to the Cia-Cia tribe – a population of about 70,000 -- in Bau-Bau City on Buton Island in Southeast Sulawesi of Indonesia.
Most Cia-Cia people speak Indonesian, which is written in the Roman alphabet, but the tribe’s native language had been on the verge of extinction as it didn’t have a writing system and fewer people used the language.
According to the Hunmin jeongeum Society, the Roman alphabet has certain limitations when it comes to precisely transcribing the sounds of the Butonese language. But Hangeul, due to its phonemic nature, can provide a more accurate representation of the language's sounds.
In 2010, there was much media hype in South Korea about “exporting” Hangeul to the indigenous people of Indonesia and that the Indonesian government had “approved the official adoption of Hangeul” by the Cia-Cia as its writing system.
Indonesian officials later denied such reports. Koreans involved in the project also said the Korean media had mistranslated Bau-Bau mayor’s words.
A King Sejong Institute opened on the island in 2012 to teach the Korean language, but closed in just seven months later due to financial problems and the lack of government commitment.
Despite the earlier diplomatic mishap and meager funding, the Cia-Cia have continued to learn Hangeul thanks to three teachers, including a Korean named Chung Deok-young and a Cia-Cia native named Abidin, who taught for years with minimal financial support from donors.
Elementary school classes on Buton Island are conducted in Indonesian, but schoolchildren learn Cia-Cia once a week using textbooks written in a modified version of Hangeul developed by Korean linguist Lee Ho-young.
Several middle and high schools on Buton have also adopted Korean as a second foreign language subject.
Thousands of Cia-Cia students have learned Korean or Hangeul so far, and the Korean script can be easily spotted on road signs or signboards in Bau-Bau.
Last year, a Cia-Cia to Korean dictionary was published after some 10 years of work.
A King Sejong Institute opened again last year in Bau-Bau with the support of the Wonam Culture Foundation, which sponsors the Hunmin jeongeum Society to propagate Hangeul.
A Hangeul school also opened in August last year, with sponsorship from South Korean life insurance company Kyobo Life Insurance.
Linguists' dream
As seen in the Cia-Cia case and others, introducing Hangeul to foreign communities could lead to a set of complex issues encompassing cultural, historical and geopolitical factors.
Even with good intentions and Hangeul’s proven linguistic versatility, there is a risk that such efforts could be perceived as a form of linguistic colonialism, experts warned.
This is why it's difficult for the central government or state-funded organizations to lead projects to disseminate Hangeul, according to Kwon, the Aymara project leader who is now chairperson of the 115-year-old Korean Language Society.
“No national government would approve of adopting another country’s script for its people,” he said.
Such projects can only be backed by nongovernmental groups, individuals or businesses, he added.
Gaining their support, however, is a difficult undertaking.
Years ago, a team consisting of IT professionals, computer language experts, and linguists developed Hangeul text input systems for mobile devices that allowed typing in five languages, including Aymara, Chinese and Cia-Cia. But they were never utilized commercially as cell phone manufacturers showed no interest.
Despite the road to Hangeul’s adoption overseas fraught with challenges, there are still groups that remain committed to King Sejong’s original vision for creating a writing system which “broadly benefits the people” by promoting literacy.
Lee Moon-ho, chair of the board at the Hunmin jeongeum Society, said his dream is to see a billion people around the world use Hangeul.
“I hope to see speakers of the Korean language -- which includes over 80 million native speakers -- exceed 100 million as it would give it much weight (as a major language), and it is my dream that over a billion people use Hangeul,” he said.
By Kim So-hyun - Published : Apr 2, 2023 - 17:03, Updated : Apr 3, 2023 - 09:16 "King Sejong the Great invented Hangeul in 1443 with the goal of increasing literacy among commoners who had few chances to learn the logographic hanja, or Chinese characters.
Out of respect for the king's democratic intention and love for humanity, several projects were launched from the late 1990s onward to share the Korean alphabet with ethnic minorities in Asia, Africa and South America that did not have their own writing systems. Without a script, their languages were at the risk of disappearing, along with their oral cultures.
But today, many of these projects no longer exist. This situation demonstrates that it takes more than just linguists and the goodwill of patrons to get a population -- regardless of its size -- to adopt a completely foreign writing system, people involved with such projects told The Korea Herald...."
New York City Mayor Eric Adams used AI to make robocalls that contort his own voice into several languages he doesn’t speak.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams doesn’t speak Mandarin, a main dialect of the Chinese language. But some New Yorkers are understandably confused. The mayor used artificial intelligence (AI) to make robocalls. AI contorted his voice into several languages he doesn’t actually speak.
The mayor spoke to reporters about the robocalls. He says they’ve gone out in languages such as Mandarin and Yiddish—the language spoken by many Jewish people who came from central Europe—to promote city hiring events. The calls include no disclosure that Adams speaks only English. Nor do they inform listeners that the calls were created using AI.
“People stop me on the street all the time and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin,’” says Adams. “We’re using different languages to speak directly to the diversity of New Yorkers.”
The watchdog group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project slams Adams’ robocalls. Members say that the calls are a dishonest use of artificial intelligence and mislead city residents.
“This is deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayer’s dime,” says Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the organization. “Yes, we need announcements in all of New Yorkers’ native languages, but the deepfakes are just a creepy vanity project.”
The mayor’s robocalls illustrate the growing use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes. Their potential to spread misinformation, especially in politics, prompts calls for greater regulation. Deepfake videos or audio can make anyone appear to be doing or saying anything. Imagine a politician releasing a fake but convincing video of an opponent making ridiculous or offensive statements. If believed, that could tank the opponent’s campaign.
Humans have lied since the Fall into sin. (Proverbs 12:17-22) AI simply provides a new way for people to spread deceit.
Google was the first big tech company to say it would impose new labels on deceptive AI-generated political advertisements.
Facebook and Instagram parent Meta doesn’t have a rule specific to political ads. But it does have a policy restricting “faked, manipulated, or transformed” audio and imagery used for misinformation.
A proposed bill in the U.S. Senate could ban “materially deceptive” deepfakes relating to federal candidates. It includes exceptions for parody and satire.
Still, technology companies continue to unveil AI tools.
In September, the music streaming service Spotify introduced a new AI feature. It can translate a podcast into multiple languages in the podcaster’s voice. The startup ElevenLabs introduced a similar voice translation tool in October.
Adams defends himself against ethical questions. He says his office is trying to reach New Yorkers through the languages they speak.
“I’ve got to run the city, and I have to be able to speak to people in the languages that they understand,” he says. “And so, to all, all I can say is a ‘ni hao*.’”
10/20/2023: "...New York City Mayor Eric Adams doesn’t speak Mandarin, a main dialect of the Chinese language. But some New Yorkers are understandably confused. The mayor used artificial intelligence (AI) to make robocalls. AI contorted his voice into several languages he doesn’t actually speak.
The mayor spoke to reporters about the robocalls. He says they’ve gone out in languages such as Mandarin and Yiddish—the language spoken by many Jewish people who came from central Europe—to promote city hiring events. The calls include no disclosure that Adams speaks only English. Nor do they inform listeners that the calls were created using AI.
“People stop me on the street all the time and say, ‘I didn’t know you speak Mandarin,’” says Adams. “We’re using different languages to speak directly to the diversity of New Yorkers.”
The watchdog group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project slams Adams’ robocalls. Members say that the calls are a dishonest use of artificial intelligence and mislead city residents.
“This is deeply unethical, especially on the taxpayer’s dime,” says Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the organization. “Yes, we need announcements in all of New Yorkers’ native languages, but the deepfakes are just a creepy vanity project.”
The mayor’s robocalls illustrate the growing use of artificial intelligence and deepfakes. Their potential to spread misinformation, especially in politics, prompts calls for greater regulation. Deepfake videos or audio can make anyone appear to be doing or saying anything. Imagine a politician releasing a fake but convincing video of an opponent making ridiculous or offensive statements. If believed, that could tank the opponent’s campaign..."
New York cannot enforce the law on language access for immigrants; New York service centers do not provide translation
'21.06.2024'
Olga Feoktistova
Every summer, City Hall hires a small team of interns who speak different languages. They come to service centers in the city and pretend that they don’t speak English. In this way, the mayor's office verifies that agencies provide services in all the languages they are required by city law. The results are disappointing: agencies completely violate language accessibility laws, reports The City.
Secret inspectors come to the staff with a simple question. For example, they want to know if they qualify for certain benefits or participation in a program. The trick is that the inspectors ask about this in a language other than English and thus determine whether the agency has interpreting services available and the relevance of the documents that must be there according to the law.
Disappointing conclusions
Last month, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs released data on how various agencies fared in undercover audits. The data reflects 148 estimates for 2023 service centers across the city.
As it turned out, more than half of the service centers in 2023 were in some way violating the New York City language access law, Local Law 30 (2008). This law requires that the center have information brochures in the 10 most widely spoken languages in the city, as well as the availability of interpretation. In addition to English, these are Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Haitian Creole, Korean, Arabic, Urdu, French and Polish.
In 2023, almost 40% of centers had no translated materials or brochures at all. A quarter of the centers did not provide interpretation services at all.
The most common violation was the lack of documents translated into the 10 major citywide languages. 25% of undercover reviewers who were not provided with interpretation at all used Google Translate. In some centers they were simply told to “come back later” or “find a bilingual person in the waiting room.”
The centers visited by undercover inspectors include city clinics and medical offices, where correct translation is vital. Two-thirds of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene facilities visited by undercover inspectors in 2023 were not in compliance with the language access law, new data shows.
With nearly half of all New Yorkers speaking a language other than English at home and the number of migrants and asylum seekers rising, advocates say agencies can't meet people's needs using English alone.
Francisco Navarro, a senior adviser in the Mayor's Office of Operations, has led the undercover program since its early days 14 years ago.
“The program has led to internal improvements that make it easier for New Yorkers to use city resources, no matter what language they speak,” Navarro said.
When the secret inspector reports that the service center does not meet the requirements, feedback from the mayor's office begins to work to improve the situation. The City has no regulatory or enforcement authority over these agencies. Local Law 30 requires each agency to create its own language access plan.Officials are working to create a community program that would provide in-person interpreter services to city agencies.
Perhaps the city will fund the creation of the Language Justice Collaborative, a cooperative bank of translators that would be made up of multilingual community members who can translate for people who don't speak English.
"New York cannot enforce the law on language access for immigrants; New York service centers do not provide translation
'21.06.2024'
Olga Feoktistova
Every summer, City Hall hires a small team of interns who speak different languages. They come to service centers in the city and pretend that they don’t speak English. In this way, the mayor's office verifies that agencies provide services in all the languages they are required by city law. The results are disappointing: agencies completely violate language accessibility laws, reports The City.
Secret inspectors come to the staff with a simple question. For example, they want to know if they qualify for certain benefits or participation in a program. The trick is that the inspectors ask about this in a language other than English and thus determine whether the agency has interpreting services available and the relevance of the documents that must be there according to the law.
Disappointing conclusions
Last month, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs released data on how various agencies fared in undercover audits. The data reflects 148 estimates for 2023 service centers across the city.
As it turned out, more than half of the service centers in 2023 were in some way violating the New York City language access law, Local Law 30 (2008). This law requires that the center have information brochures in the 10 most widely spoken languages in the city, as well as the availability of interpretation. In addition to English, these are Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, Haitian Creole, Korean, Arabic, Urdu, French and Polish.
In 2023, almost 40% of centers had no translated materials or brochures at all. A quarter of the centers did not provide interpretation services at all.
The most common violation was the lack of documents translated into the 10 major citywide languages. 25% of undercover reviewers who were not provided with interpretation at all used Google Translate. In some centers they were simply told to “come back later” or “find a bilingual person in the waiting room.”
The centers visited by undercover inspectors include city clinics and medical offices, where correct translation is vital. Two-thirds of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene facilities visited by undercover inspectors in 2023 were not in compliance with the language access law, new data shows.
With nearly half of all New Yorkers speaking a language other than English at home and the number of migrants and asylum seekers rising, advocates say agencies can't meet people's needs using English alone.
Francisco Navarro, a senior adviser in the Mayor's Office of Operations, has led the undercover program since its early days 14 years ago.
“The program has led to internal improvements that make it easier for New Yorkers to use city resources, no matter what language they speak,” Navarro said.
When the secret inspector reports that the service center does not meet the requirements, feedback from the mayor's office begins to work to improve the situation. The City has no regulatory or enforcement authority over these agencies. Local Law 30 requires each agency to create its own language access plan.Officials are working to create a community program that would provide in-person interpreter services to city agencies.
Perhaps the city will fund the creation of the Language Justice Collaborative, a cooperative bank of translators that would be made up of multilingual community members who can translate for people who don't speak English."
What needs to be measured is the effectiveness of the pedagogical approach. Computers can enable a fundamental change in pedagogy, but if it doesn’t happen then it’s unlikely that there will be any measurable result from adding them.
La entrevista a Nik Peachey ofrece una reflexión relevante sobre la relación entre tecnología y motivación en el aprendizaje de EFL. Se pone de manifiesto que la motivación aumenta cuando las herramientas digitales se utilizan para crear tareas comunicativas con un propósito real, en las que el alumnado participa de forma activa.
Asimismo, el papel del docente resulta fundamental, ya que es quien debe orientla reflexión sobre el papel del docente como mediador digital resulta clave, ya que no es la herramienta en sí la que motiva, sino la forma en que se integra en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. En este sentido, la entrevista subraya la importancia de diseñar experiencias de aprendizaje atractivas que favorezcan la autonomía y el compromiso del estudiante con la lengua extranjera.
How do you help English Language Learners when your school has no ESL curriculum?
In Part One, educators Wendi Pillars, Annie Huynh, Regie Routman, William Himmele, and Pérsida Himmele shared their advice. You can also listen to a ten-minute conversation I had with Wendi and Annie on my BAM! Radio Show. You can find also see a list of, and links to, previous shows.
In this post, Mary Cappellini, Ekuwah Moses, Giselle Lundy-Ponce, Pamela Mesta, Olga Reber and Heather Wolpert-Gawron contribute their suggestions. I also include some comments from readers.
Response From Mary Cappellini
Mary Cappellini is an Educational Consultant and Author of: Balancing Reading and Language Learning: A Resource for Teaching English Language Learners, K-5:
There are many things you can do to improve the literacy of your English Language Learners, even if your school has no formal ESL or ELD curriculum. Here are 5 things I will highlight: Know your learners--both their language and their reading level, provide a balanced reading program with effective modeling and practice, teach academic vocabulary and content within a theme, and not only provide comprehensible input which includes environmental print and understandable talk but also expect appropriate output from your ELLs.
In order to plan for instruction you need to listen to each ELL talk, assess his/her language level and also assess his/her reading level. You need to know if s/he is a fluent reader in her/his primary language, which means that s/he will have the necessary literacy skills to transfer this knowledge to English. Use the information to track progress across the year on a developmental language and a developmental reading checklist and to help form groups.
More advanced readers may be less advanced speakers, and yet within a balanced reading program the children should be placed in guided reading groups according to their reading level, not their language level. Extra care should be used to choose appropriate books based on their developmental language level. If your ELLs are not yet speaking in the past tense, then books that are written in the present tense, like most nonfiction books, might be the best choice.
ELLs need modeling of effective reading strategies and effective language patterns by having you not only read but also chart the important information in read alouds and shared reading. And they need time to try out the strategies and the new language in small groups and independently, being able to refer to the charts not only for the strategies, but also the language patterns which they need to improve their speech.
Teach new academic vocabulary in thematic units, which focus on content area learning. ELLs need to see graphs of content learning, with adjectives, nouns, verbs and other parts of speech used to "tell" about what they are learning, whether about the ocean, space or the artic circle. They can then use that new language in different contexts or within the same theme or as they come across the same words again in their independent reading. They start to make connections between the academic vocabulary and the language that they are hearing and starting to say orally, as they are reading and writing.
By slowing down, making talk more understandable, and writing down the essential elements in a lesson and putting it up on the walls of your classroom, creating valuable environmental print, you are not only able to help highlight important information, but you provide comprehensible input which can help ELLs who are struggling to make sense of the main ideas. Providing opportunity for ELLs to speak with their peers of various language levels and to expect output from them comparable to their developmental level, you are able to help them within your classroom to survive and thrive.
Response From Ekuwah Moses
Ekuwah Moses is currently a Family and Community Engagement Facilitator in Las Vegas, Nevada and works for the Clark County School District. Previously, she served as an Instructional Coach, Literacy Specialist, Learning Strategist, and elementary classroom teacher. Moses is a published ILA author and has presented internationally. She is a new blogger and enjoys sharing experiences, authentic classroom photos and innovations in professional development with other educators. Follow her on Twitter @ekuwah or Facebook at "Cues from Ekuwah Moses":
Without an ESL curriculum, concentrate on saturating students in a readily available, active, and organic academic cueing system. These student-generated and literacy-rich environments don't just happen. They must be strategically planned and continuously modified with constant student participation and intentional collaboration. Attention to relevant environmental and visual cues is paramount. Use all available school hallways, classroom walls, or physical structures to exude and explain eye-catching academic language and functions. Specifically, refine your traditional charts and bulletin boards.
Teachers have been making or purchasing charts for decades; however, the visual process of co-constructing anchor charts with ELLs keeps the focus on learning and teaching academic language during tier one instruction, whether whole group or small group, and is not program dependent. Any school. Any budget. Any teacher. Active charting is a universal mechanism any educator can use to elicit productive discourse, embed academic vocabulary, and visually scaffolding content as students write to convey application and understanding across all curricular areas. Co-constructed anchor charts empower teachers to bring back creativity and artistic expression to abstract lessons. The guidelines for successful charting are loose enough to yield high student achievement and respect a teacher's expertise. To masterfully support ELLs, it is imperative to add vivid visuals or images, personal relevance, multiple content-based examples, and tangible realia while charting. The teacher's consistent verbal and gestural cues to a chart's academic language and non-linguistic support guide the oral and written discourse of learners. The collaborative investigation and chart co-construction gives students access to ideas and content that would otherwise be too abstract and impenetrable. It's an ELL secret weapon!
Simple tweaks to the standard "cute" bulletin board can also yield exponential results with ELLs. The academic wall display, a reimagined bulletin board, is an environmental and visual cue to support increased academic discourse (oral and written) school-wide. Elementary teachers typically display their best class work in the hallways. Rethink what is displayed and how it is marketed. Eliminate wasted instructional time on holiday projects or cut-n-color activities that dominate the boards. Academic wall displays are still attractive and eye-catching; but, reload with prominent academic language used in the previous classroom instruction. View the display as a billboard advertising critical academic vocabulary; thus, providing a teacher the strategic opportunity to use verbal and gestural cues while walking in the hallway (maximizing the entire school day). An ELLs' eye is immediately and repeatedly drawn to the concise and bold title of academic language, vivid visual support of content, and application of that vocabulary in current student-generated work.
The effective cueing system shifts the ELLs attention to specifically what they are learning, why they are learning it, and seeing vocabulary connections throughout the entire school day. As ELLs gain more intentional repetitions of academic vocabulary, gain access to robust instruction and tasks (displayed in the hallway and co-constructed anchor charts), and are sufficiently cued to write to convey knowledge in all subjects, this will ultimately raise student responsibility for achievement.
Response From Giselle Lundy-Ponce
Giselle Lundy-Ponce has been working in the field of PK-12 program development, education policy and advocacy for the last twenty-two years. Currently, her work focuses on policy and research analysis for the American Federation of Teachers and she leads the AFT's work on English language learners and Latino student achievement:
ELLs benefit the most when mainstream content is adapted to their needs, especially since it is not unusual for ESL curricula to have weak connections to grade-level content. So, while it is a challenge to create an ESL curriculum, educators do not need to start from scratch. Ideally, they should see creating an ESL curriculum that complements the mainstream curriculum as an opportunity to collaborate and innovate with their mainstream and specialized colleagues. Even when ELLs are not yet proficient in English, they can still be exposed to rich curriculum that explores grade-level topics such as the Gettysburg Address, ancient Egypt and the works of authors such as John Steinbeck, among others. Experts such as Diane August, Kenji Hakuta and Lilly Wong Fillmore point out that ELLs learn language best when they engage with rich content. Rich content, including fiction and informational text, inspires enthusiasm, inquiry, discussion, and ideas.
When creating a curriculum, keep in mind the following:
Align the curriculum to the academic standards and the English language proficiency standards used in that state (remember, standards are not curriculum) Be cautious in selecting materials. In many cases, textbooks and curricular materials targeted to ELLs are heavy on visuals (illustrations, graphics, photos, etc.) and light on alignment to academic content; too often, they include very little complex text or academic vocabulary. Start out with pilot lesson plans to see how they will need to be adjusted and revised rather than create a complete curricular unit without first testing it. When developing lesson plans aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), refer to the EQuIP Rubric: Include diagnostic activities to make sure students understand the content/skills being taught Include a rubric for how student work will be evaluated Take into account the content knowledge and skills taught in previous grades, as well as the preparation needed for the next grade level. After all, learning is part of a continuum. Especially for students with interrupted formal schooling, specify which instructional scaffolds may be needed. A few additional resources may be helpful:
In this comprehensive and insightful article, expert ESL teacher educator and ESL program administrator Julie Motta walks readers through adapting a unit for ELLs from existing curriculum. It includes a template and an exemplar, two must-haves for new educators or educators new to ELLs.
This link includes three lesson plan exemplars for ELLs in 1st, 4th and 8th grades, aligned to the CCSS:
In these articles and blog entries, experts share their views on the role of curriculum in the classroom, and on its importance for democracy and equity to thrive.
The Role Of Curriculum
Creating A Curriculum For The American People
Response From Pamela Mesta & Olga Reber
Pamela Mesta's experience includes ESOL, bilingual, elementary, early childhood, educational technology, professional development and interpretation/translation. She currently works as an ESOL Supervisor in a public school district and is also an adjunct college professor. Mesta has her B.A. in communications, her M.A. in education, and has done post-graduate work in ESL, educational technology and school administration. Her certifications include ESOL Pre-K-12, Elem/MS 1-6, Administrator I/II, and National Board Certification in Early Childhood.
Olga Reber's experience includes ESOL, EFL, professional development and interpretation/translation. She currently works as an ESOL Resource Teacher in a public school district and is also an adjunct college professor. Reber has her B.S. in secondary education/foreign language instruction, her M.A. in linguistics, and has done post-graduate work in educational technology. Her teacher certification is ESOL Pre-K-12:
Tip #1: Know your learners!
Before planning instruction and assessment for your ELLs, it is critical to know their background. Information to research: Prior schooling/experiences: grade last completed and when, interrupted education, level of literacy in the native language (L1), exposure to English (formal or informal), previous grades/progress in school, etc.; Cultural background: values, beliefs, customs and the impact these may have on education; English language level: know how ELLs are tested and leveled in your state and obtain copies of your students' language testing. Consult with ESL staff in your building, as they can help answer many of these questions.
Tip #2: Teach language through content!
ELLs should not be removed from the challenges set forth in the standards, but rather supported in meeting them. With appropriate scaffolding, ELLs can participate in meaningful instruction before they can demonstrate native or near-native language proficiency. Use content and language standards to drive your instruction. This is the key to planning and delivering high-quality instruction in absence of a prescribed ESL curriculum, and can prove to be quite successful if implemented effectively. Start with your grade-level standards and content, along with the language standards supported by your state/jurisdiction. Build on students' background knowledge and prior experiences. Pre-teach essential academic vocabulary for each unit of study, and provide repeated exposure in a variety of settings. Use high-quality visuals, media and realia to help students make connections. Co-plan with ESL and related support staff to ensure that students are learning language and content concurrently.
Tip #3: Give students access to the core curriculum!
It's not as difficult as it sounds! The key to providing access is reducing the linguistic complexity that exists in the curriculum. First examine your curriculum, lessons and assessments and ask yourself, "How can I simplify the language while keeping the content intact?" Preview your content for multiple meaning words and cultural bias, as these could pose significant challenges, especially in the area of mathematics. Increase the frequency of key academic vocabulary exposure and the use of necessary language structures. Capitalize on the presence of cognates (words that have the same linguistic derivation/root). Create an effective communication and service plan with your ESL professional and related staff, and be sure to communicate this your ELL families. Examine service models, grading practices, content modifications and accommodations, and be open to change. Be sure that your assessments match your instruction. Seek additional interventions for your ELLs that support literacy and content development.
Continue to explore resources in your jurisdiction (supplemental materials, access to professional development, interpretation/translation support, etc.), advocate for your ELLs and embrace a growth mindset when it comes to supporting your ELLs.
For more information, check out our upcoming book: The Classroom Teacher's Guide to Supporting ELLs.
Response From Heather Wolpert-Gawron
Heather Wolpert-Gawron is an award-winning middle school teacher, blogger, and author of such books as DIY for Project Based Learning for ELA and History, DIY for PBL for Math and Science, and Writing Behind Every Door: Teaching Common Core Writing in the Content Areas. Heather believes curriculum design should tell a story, and hopes teachers play a role in 21st Century lesson development. She is passionate about educational technology and its role in helping students communicate all subjects:
Here are a few suggestions:
* Enhance history lessons using primary source pictures to begin discussions.
* Turn on captions for any Ted Talks that you might be watching. Also, watch the speeches with the sound off so that they can work on their facial expressions and gestures. Notice that when people move on a stage sometimes indicates the organization of the speeches themselves.
* Use Google's Add-on ReadWrite. That will read any text uploaded to Google Drive (albeit in a robotic voice) and will highlight the text as it reads along.
* Allow discussion at all times! Teach debate. Give them the confidence with oral speaking in the classroom that comes with the comfort of being allowed to take risks. So many students remain stagnant in EL programs because they aren't interacting with the material orally. Give them the confidence to speak up in class.
* Bring in the family. As consultant Lisa Dabbs says, bring the school to the families. Don't just call when there's a problem. Call home with praise, too. Don't invite families to the school for coffee, ask if there's an EL family that will host in their home. Break down the fear of school that might also be present in the family unit by making sure you are reaching out in ways that help them take your hand.
Responses From Readers
Joanne Yatvin (a past president of the National Council Of Teachers Of English):
Helping ELLS who enter high school knowing little or no English is very difficult; not only because they tend to use their native language socially in and out of school and stay silent in classrooms, but also because high school curricula demand more competence in English than they can reach in so short a time. Having a specialized class for English learning, in addition to regular classes, does help students somewhat, but it is rarely enough for the fast transition they need to be successful in high school.
On the other hand, helping ELLS learn English at elementary level is doable when teachers have the right training. Over five years I visited classrooms in four high poverty elementary schools, in rural Oregon, with large numbers of English language learners. Because those students came to school many different native languages, it was not possible to have special classes for speakers of each one. Therefore, regular classroom teachers were charged with doing the full job of teaching their ELLs English and the whole class the regular curriculum in reading, writing, math etc.
Early on, I found out that elementary teachers in this school district were required to take a weeklong course called Project GLAD (Guided Literacy Acquisition Design), so I decided to take the course myself. It was excellent, and it helped me to appreciate what the teachers I was observing were doing.
In the beginning, the essentials are partnering a new ELL with a native English speaker who would help the newcomer with the basic routines, such as finding materials in the classroom, standing in line in the lunchroom, and essential language such as "Where is..." What the teacher does, from the beginning and throughout the year is, as far as possible, to present new material visually and orally along with written forms, and to use stock phrases to accustom ELLs to the regular language structures of English and the basic information and skills of the material being taught. To help ELLs remember the information taught or important vocabulary, teachers frequently invent songs or rhymes for students to learn and repeat in chorus.
Another basic component is teaching is consistency: using the similar formats to present new material throughout the year, modifying them somewhat as students become more familiar with them. In addition, teachers continue to use visual presentations on a regular basis --mostly roughly drawn images to help ELLs understand new concepts and vocabulary.
Katy Torres:
Why would ESL students have a different curriculum than mainstream students? All students should have access to the same curriculum, created with UDL principals, and receive additional support based on their language proficiency levels and level of background knowledge. Mainstream teachers have a shared responsibility to support ELs.
Cada dia són més nombroses i diverses les comunicacions, tant orals com escrites, a què estem exposats els usuaris de la llengua. Això provoca, d'una banda, una celeritat més gran en les comunicacions i, de l'altra, exigeix més eficàcia en la producció i recepció.
A grans trets, els principis que determinen l'eficàcia comunicativa, tant pel que fa a l'emissor com al receptor, poden resumir-se en els punts següents:
1. Fer correspondre la finalitat de la comunicació (oral o escrita) amb la forma d'emissió del missatge. 2. Identificar i reconèixer els emissors de la comunicació i adequar-la als receptors. 3. Respectar els factors que determinen el registre lingüístic. 4. Ser clar i comprensible mitjançant l'ús d'una llengua eficaç.
Este artículo pone el foco en la importancia del apoyo emocional y pedagógico para que los estudiantes de inglés no solo “sobrevivan”, sino que prosperen en el proceso de aprendizaje de la lengua. Desde la perspectiva de la motivación, crear un entorno seguro y de apoyo resulta esencial para reducir la ansiedad lingüística y favorecer una actitud positiva hacia el aprendizaje.
Modern Technology in Language Learning and Teaching
Learning a language requires considerable confidence in the outcome. This, in turn, requires enthusiasm and motivation to learn, which not every student has. The strongest motivating factors that drive a person to start learning a language include the opportunity to study abroad, satisfy their ambitions, and desire for self-development.
One can’t deny that modern learning is more fun, effective, and diverse than before, with various tools and technologies to come to a student’s aid. Today we will discuss some of them.
Current Approach to Language Learning
The specificity of a foreign language as a subject is that communication is not only the ultimate goal of learning but also a means to achieve it. Since language remains the only universal basis for thinking, knowledge of a foreign language should be considered in terms of improving intellectual abilities. Here we are talking about memory, imagination, critical, logical, creative thinking.
Methods of learning and teaching foreign languages
Modern methods of teaching foreign languages, which are based on an innovative approach, are aimed at the development and self-improvement of the individual, unveiling of reserved capabilities, and creative potential. The following tendencies of innovative language learning can be identified:
Establishing a friendly atmosphere and relationships between the participants of communication; students have the opportunity to be more independent and confident; the teacher encourages students to cooperate and learn from mistakes; students have the opportunity to overcome the fear of the language barrier; the teacher does not dominate; good usage of professional online translation services; encouragement of student cooperation; each student involved in the work has a specific task; students can use their knowledge and experience gained earlier.
Modern methods offer an introduction of non-standard methods and forms of work for better conscious assimilation of the material. In practice, the following forms of work proved to be quite effective:
Individual work; training in pairs; group projects;
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Novelty educational tendencies
The teacher in language learning usually acts as a consultant, advisor. This drives a positive shift – students take a more active part in the learning process, put forward their views and ideas with less reluctance, and are free to act more independently and take more control over the learning process. The teacher’s task is to create conditions for practical language acquisition for each student, to use appropriate language learning apps, to choose such teaching methods that would allow each student to show their skills, creativity, to intensify cognitive activity in the process of learning foreign languages. This contributed to the establishment of updated principles of modern learning, which include:
Movement from common to individual learning; student-centered classes; the purposefulness of classes; focus on social interaction; integration of language and its acquisition with the help of knowledge from other branches of science. Various Learning Technologies of Today
There are several programs that will help you better understand the language.
Yammer is a private social network that allows you to stay in touch with the right people. OneNote is a program for storing and organizing information using electronic notebooks. Hotpotatoes is a tool shell that provides the ability to independently create interactive tasks and tests for the control of students. This tool can be used without knowledge of the programming language and the involvement of specialists in the field of programming. Padlet is a multimedia resource for creating, sharing, editing, and storing data that includes a social feature that allows you to share information with friends using social networks. Webquests. For intrapersonal learners, it is useful to set a goal and achieve it through independent work. This means that online research and software solutions are indispensable.
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Additionally, a lot of modern technologies are based on cooperation. If you like live lessons, then most likely you have stopped your choice on Zoom, Microsoft Teams platforms, or conduct lessons in Skype or even Viber. The main idea is to create conditions for active joint activities of students in different learning situations. For instance, students can be divided into groups of 3-4 people, given one task, and told to discuss the role of each individual in task completion. Each student is responsible not only for the result of their work but also for the result of the whole group. Therefore, students are driven to cooperate and work on the task as a team, bringing their individual ideas and skills to a common table. The whole class will benefit from such an exercise because together the students can eliminate gaps in their knowledge and help each other learn.
Making Language Learning and Teaching Easy
Today, teachers struggle with the interest and motivation of students to learn the language. Traditional teaching methods alone are not enough for effective language learning. We have selected some tools and resources that aim to make language learning more fruitful and interesting, and keep students more motivated, focused, and engaged in the learning process.
One of the strongest motivations for learning a language is to get the first positive result. Gradually, progress will become more noticeable, and further training will bring nothing but fun. With each new lesson, the process of learning the material will be faster, which means that language learning will progress much more effectively and be a pleasurable experience for every student.
Table of Contents
Current Approach to Language Learning Methods of learning and teaching foreign languages Novelty educational tendencies Various Learning Technologies of Today Making Language Learning and Teaching Easy
Learning different languages can be challenging but with modern technology and new teaching methods educators are able to motivate students. Individual work, training in pairs and group projects are some methods that can assist for students to cooperate in the classroom.
La integración de la tecnología moderna en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras ofrece numerosas oportunidades para reforzar la motivación del alumnado. Las herramientas digitales permiten diversificar metodologías, personalizar el aprendizaje y facilitar un acceso más flexible a los contenidos, aspectos especialmente valorados por los estudiantes actuales. No obstante, el artículo invita también a reflexionar sobre la necesidad de un uso pedagógico consciente de la tecnología. La motivación no surge de la herramienta en sí, sino de su capacidad para generar experiencias de aprendizaje significativas, comunicativas y adaptadas a las necesidades del alumnado. Cuando la tecnología se integra de forma coherente en el proceso didáctico, se convierte en un factor clave para mantener el compromiso y el interés en el aprendizaje de una lengua extranjera.
"Defence Minister inaugurates newly established Center for Languages and Translation
Mogadishu, (SONNA) — The Minister of Defence, H.E. Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, today inaugurated the newly established Centre for Language and Translation of the Ministry of Defence. The ceremony was attended by the Assistant to the Chief of Defence Forces, Brig. Gen. Madey Nur Sheikh Ufurow, former Deputy Minister of Defence, Hon. Abdifitah Qassim, Members of Parliament, senior officials, and staff from the Ministry and Army HQ.
In his address, the Minister underscored the strategic significance of the new Centre in enhancing the linguistic capabilities of Ministry personnel and military officers preparing for international training and cooperation programmes. He described the facility as a vital bridge strengthening Somalia’s engagement with the international community.
The Minister further noted that the Centre was established to improve language proficiency and strengthen translation services for Ministry staff and SNA officers, ensuring that the Ministry, the Armed Forces, and national security operations are supported with the required communication and linguistic competencies.
In conclusion, Minister Fiqi encouraged staff to fully utilise the opportunities offered by the Centre and to strengthen their professional language skills so they may effectively fulfil the national responsibilities entrusted to them." By Khadarow Last updated: November 23, 2025 https://sonna.so/en/defence-minister-inaugurates-newly-established-center-for-languages-and-translation/ #Metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"Defence Minister inaugurates newly established Center for Languages and Translation
Mogadishu, (SONNA) — The Minister of Defence, H.E. Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, today inaugurated the newly established Centre for Language and Translation of the Ministry of Defence. The ceremony was attended by the Assistant to the Chief of Defence Forces, Brig. Gen. Madey Nur Sheikh Ufurow, former Deputy Minister of Defence, Hon. Abdifitah Qassim, Members of Parliament, senior officials, and staff from the Ministry and Army HQ.
In his address, the Minister underscored the strategic significance of the new Centre in enhancing the linguistic capabilities of Ministry personnel and military officers preparing for international training and cooperation programmes. He described the facility as a vital bridge strengthening Somalia’s engagement with the international community.
The Minister further noted that the Centre was established to improve language proficiency and strengthen translation services for Ministry staff and SNA officers, ensuring that the Ministry, the Armed Forces, and national security operations are supported with the required communication and linguistic competencies.
In conclusion, Minister Fiqi encouraged staff to fully utilise the opportunities offered by the Centre and to strengthen their professional language skills so they may effectively fulfil the national responsibilities entrusted to them."
In Alaska, the number of fluent Haida speakers has dwindled down into the single digits. It’s been called an endangered language. But in Juneau, one group is trying to change that. Haida Language Learners is using YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram to reach a wider audience. Audio Player 00:0000:00Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Emily Rose Edenshaw-Chafin shows me her phone. She’s been using a flashcard app to practice Haida. It’s totally customizable. She can create the cards and share them with teachers and friends. On one of the cards is a picture of a horse grazing in a field, and it’s broken down into cuts of meat — labeled Gyuudáan Kiʼíi eehl Hl ʼwáadaagang.
Haida Language Learners use the app Snapchat to connect with others. The app deletes shared videos after a few seconds, which they say is perfect for practicing the language. “And then the second one is a cartoon, the one in English that says ‘I have horse meat for sale.’ It’s a picture of a horse head inside a burger,” Edenshaw says. Not a real horse head, part of a costume. “For me, it makes it funny and it makes it more interesting,” she says. The Haida arrived in Southeast a few hundred years ago. Some left their ancestral home of Haida Gwaii, which is now part of Canada. They settled in villages on Prince of Wales Island. Edenshaw says the Haida language’s grammar structure is similar to Spanish. And like Spanish, it can sound like a foreign language. “And being Native you’re disappointed that you don’t know your own heritage and language. It’s hard to work past that sometimes,” she says. Edenshaw has practiced Haida for over a decade. Her family moved to Hydaburg when she was a kid, and she started picking words up. “You know, like thank you: Háw’aa. Hágwsdaa: hurry up. You hear that one a lot.” But she says it was hard to learn more complex phrases. In college, she was able to take a free class taught by a linguist. “I really fell in love with the language. I wanted to write poetry in Haida. I wanted to dream in Haida, so I continued to practice with it.” She says part of that meant finding someone to speak Haida with, to use words and phrases that are relevant in conversation today. Edenshaw met Susie Lee Edwardson in Haida class. In their YouTube video, a picture of Grumpy Cat flashes on the screen. You know, Grumpy cat. The feline celebrity meme. Edwardson repeats the word híndaa or “go away.”
It has more than 200 views. Their YouTube Channel has about 145 subscribers, which may not seem like a lot. But remember, Alaska’s fluent Haida speakers are in the single digits. Edwardson has only been studying it for about three years, and says she didn’t grow up speaking the language. Her parents spoke a word here and there. “It didn’t really connect with me as it was a part of me,” Edwardson says. “But when I got into college and I started learning the language with my family, it felt really good and it felt like you were going into a community that you were a part of all your life.” The number of fluent Haida speakers has been declining for the past 100 years. Many boarding schools run by the federal government and missionaries enforced strict bans on Native languages. Edwardson says it’s a serious topic, but they’re trying to make learning Haida fun. It’s involved some compromise. She took down one of their YouTube videos because some found it offensive. In that video, she says the Haida word for penis. OK, maybe they went a little farther and said “tiny penis.” But Edwardson says they don’t want to offend anyone.
Emily Rose Edenshaw-Chafin and Susie Lee Edwardson plan out their next YouTube video. (Photo by Elizabeth Jenkins/KTOO) “Like the little radical in me is like, ‘it’s the language,'” Edwardson says. “But at the same time we want it to be accessible. And if families are going through the YouTube videos and there’s something they don’t want them to learn yet, I don’t want them to stay away from the language.” Then there’s also the issue of finding ways to express modern notions. But Edenshaw says that’s totally doable. “We ask the elders what would make this work. What can we do to translate this into Haida?” Edenshaw says. “So we’ll all understand it and then we can use just Haida vocabulary and our thoughts and what we’re doing nowadays.” The Haida phrase for computer literally means “the box that knows everything.” A cellphone is a “purse phone” or “wallet phone.” Spinach is “iron leaf.” And she says having the web to connect with others has been huge. Haida Language Learners has received messages from a teenage fan in New York. They’ve helped people in remote communities say goodbye to a loved one at a funeral in Haida. Edenshaw recently quit her day job to focus on language revitalization full-time. She wants people to know Haida isn’t dead. “We can bring back the language. We can’t bring back every single part of the culture but we can bring back the important parts that will make us feel whole and make us feel right in the world.” She hasn’t dreamed in Haida yet. But she is writing poetry. Correction: A previous version of this story said that Edwardson had been studying the language for about one year. She’s actually been studying it for three years. We regret the error.
Large language models speak over 100 languages fluently unless you're one of Africa's 1.2 billion people. Are so-called “universal” AI systems excluding an entire continent’s linguistic heritage from the digital future?
"AI is finally trying to speak African languages. Will this end a historic neglect?
Large language models speak over 100 languages fluently unless you're one of Africa's 1.2 billion people. Are so-called “universal” AI systems excluding an entire continent’s linguistic heritage from the digital future?
By Edibe Betul Yucer
Nine years ago, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai first pledged that artificial intelligence would make information “universally accessible” to everyone, regardless of language.
He has continued to repeat that promise ever since, fuelling expectations around the world that technology would finally bridge linguistic divides and provide equal access to knowledge for all.
Yet for those who speak any of Africa’s more than 2,000 languages, that promise remains distant.
Millions across the continent still find that the advanced AI tools transforming agriculture, education, and daily life cannot understand or communicate in their own languages.
According to research, ChatGPT – which has 800 million weekly active users worldwide— recognises only 10 to 20 per cent of sentences written in Hausa, which is spoken by over 94 million Nigerians.
The same goes for other widely spoken African languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, Swahili, and Somali, all of which remain severely underrepresented in mainstream AI models despite having tens of millions of speakers.
But why have so many African languages been overlooked by today’s most powerful AI tools and what does this reveal about who gets to shape the digital future?
‘Low resource’ languages
One of the foremost and utmost reasons for African languages’ exclusion from AI is what researchers call the “low-resource” problem.
In this context, “low-resource” refers to the scarcity of online materials such as websites, books, and transcripts available in those languages.
Since most large language models (LLMs) rely on huge volumes of such digital data to learn and generate text, the vast majority of this data is in English (high-resource) or a handful of other widely spoken global languages in the West.
“Our measure for progress and research agenda is based on what works for Western languages,” says Hellina Hailu Nigatu, an AI researcher focused on LLMs at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lack of training data leaves AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini struggling to recognise, generate or even meaningfully “see” African languages, no matter how many people speak them.
“African languages are categorised as ‘low-resource’ and are usually excluded, or even when they are included, systems perform poorly on them,” she tells TRT World.
This classification system that divides the world's languages into "high-resource" and "low-resource" categories has become the industry's preferred framework for discussing this disparity.
Commercial incentives, systemic bias and cost issue
Another reason for underrepresentation is the priorities of global AI research and development.
Research shows that large language model (LLM) outputs lean towards “Western stereotypes”.
The standards are set mostly by Western tech companies and academic institutions, which focus on languages with the largest online footprints and most funding directed towards a small group of “high-resource” languages.
As a result, African languages are rarely prioritised for investment or innovation.
Commercial incentives also play a major role. Since the immediate economic returns from African language markets are limited, companies have little motivation to dedicate time and resources to improving AI support for these languages.
This structural bias is reinforced by the datasets used to train AI models.
Even when African languages are included, the systems often adopt Western cultural assumptions, sometimes misrepresenting local contexts or perpetuating stereotypes.
The findings align with broader research on algorithmic bias.
“What we see in research is that adopting LLMs to multiple languages without careful consideration risks importing biases from English to these multilingual contexts, or misses contextual notions of bias that do not exist in English,” Nigatu says."
Large language models speak over 100 languages fluently unless you're one of Africa's 1.2 billion people. Are so-called “universal” AI systems excluding an entire continent’s linguistic heritage from the digital future?
"AI is finally trying to speak African languages. Will this end a historic neglect?
Large language models speak over 100 languages fluently unless you're one of Africa's 1.2 billion people. Are so-called “universal” AI systems excluding an entire continent’s linguistic heritage from the digital future?
By Edibe Betul Yucer
Nine years ago, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai first pledged that artificial intelligence would make information “universally accessible” to everyone, regardless of language.
He has continued to repeat that promise ever since, fuelling expectations around the world that technology would finally bridge linguistic divides and provide equal access to knowledge for all.
Yet for those who speak any of Africa’s more than 2,000 languages, that promise remains distant.
Millions across the continent still find that the advanced AI tools transforming agriculture, education, and daily life cannot understand or communicate in their own languages.
According to research, ChatGPT – which has 800 million weekly active users worldwide— recognises only 10 to 20 per cent of sentences written in Hausa, which is spoken by over 94 million Nigerians.
The same goes for other widely spoken African languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, Swahili, and Somali, all of which remain severely underrepresented in mainstream AI models despite having tens of millions of speakers.
But why have so many African languages been overlooked by today’s most powerful AI tools and what does this reveal about who gets to shape the digital future?
‘Low resource’ languages
One of the foremost and utmost reasons for African languages’ exclusion from AI is what researchers call the “low-resource” problem.
In this context, “low-resource” refers to the scarcity of online materials such as websites, books, and transcripts available in those languages.
Since most large language models (LLMs) rely on huge volumes of such digital data to learn and generate text, the vast majority of this data is in English (high-resource) or a handful of other widely spoken global languages in the West.
“Our measure for progress and research agenda is based on what works for Western languages,” says Hellina Hailu Nigatu, an AI researcher focused on LLMs at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lack of training data leaves AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini struggling to recognise, generate or even meaningfully “see” African languages, no matter how many people speak them.
“African languages are categorised as ‘low-resource’ and are usually excluded, or even when they are included, systems perform poorly on them,” she tells TRT World.
This classification system that divides the world's languages into "high-resource" and "low-resource" categories has become the industry's preferred framework for discussing this disparity.
Commercial incentives, systemic bias and cost issue
Another reason for underrepresentation is the priorities of global AI research and development.
Research shows that large language model (LLM) outputs lean towards “Western stereotypes”.
The standards are set mostly by Western tech companies and academic institutions, which focus on languages with the largest online footprints and most funding directed towards a small group of “high-resource” languages.
As a result, African languages are rarely prioritised for investment or innovation.
Commercial incentives also play a major role. Since the immediate economic returns from African language markets are limited, companies have little motivation to dedicate time and resources to improving AI support for these languages.
This structural bias is reinforced by the datasets used to train AI models.
Even when African languages are included, the systems often adopt Western cultural assumptions, sometimes misrepresenting local contexts or perpetuating stereotypes.
The findings align with broader research on algorithmic bias.
“What we see in research is that adopting LLMs to multiple languages without careful consideration risks importing biases from English to these multilingual contexts, or misses contextual notions of bias that do not exist in English,” Nigatu says."
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo, D-Los Angeles, was leading a hearing in the California Legislature when a caller began speaking Spanish over the public comment phone line.
“Hago un llamado para pedir a los legislators que aseguran que los trabajadores excluidos del seguro de desempleo ser un mayor prioridad este año,” the caller said.
Carrillo, without missing a beat, translated the comments.
“That was Vanessa Terán, who was calling for advocacy for underemployed or unemployed undocumented workers, which have been categorically underrepresented and not a part of the solutions when it comes to COVID recovery,” Carrillo said. “So we hear you and I understand your concerns. Thank you.”
It doesn’t always go so smoothly when language becomes a barrier in state government.
California has the largest population of residents who speak other languages at home. But even at the highest levels, the state has trouble providing language access to those seeking to participate in civic life.
And the pattern holds for people trying to obtain government services and benefits at agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The problem is so pervasive that even lawmakers like Carrillo, who is bilingual and grew up speaking Spanish at home, end up performing extra work to make sure non-English-speakers are included.
“Coming from a Spanish-speaking household, and as a child translating for my parents, I understand on a personal level just how difficult it is,” Carrillo said. “And also how challenging and difficult it is to feel that you can be heard in a space like this.”
California language diversity
With over 200 languages and dialects spoken across the state, California is one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. That distinction continues to complicate the dissemination of critical information.
About 44% of California households speak languages other than English at home — more than double the national average of 21.5%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Statewide, most households that fall into this category speak Spanish, followed by languages from Asia and the Pacific Islands, Census data shows.
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California’s percentage of households that speak languages other than English far exceeds even states with similarly diverse populations, like Texas and New York. About 35% of Texans speak other languages at home, as do 30% of New Yorkers.
At a subcommittee hearing last Wednesday Asian Americans were highlighted as one of the groups most affected by language access issues.
“Asian Americans are a diverse population, belonging to dozens of ethnic groups with significant linguistic diversity that puts them at continuous inequitable disadvantage in regards to representation and resource allocation,” said Faith Lee, a legislative director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice California.
About one-third of Asian Americans speak only English in their homes, according to the Pew Research Center. The remaining 66% speak a language other than English. Asian Americans also have the highest rates of limited English proficiency at 35%, according to a report from the Center for American Progress. The Census Bureau defines limited English proficiency as those who do not speak English “very well.”
Lee said language access was identified as the most urgent issue in a recent Asian Americans Advancing Justice California survey of 57 community organizations. Limited English proficiency often results in barriers to services like health care, mental health and employment assistance.
Lee pushed for the state to avoid solutions that rely on digital translation tools, such as Google Translate, and set standards to provide a minimum number of interpreters and translators.
“We should also raise the floor and language access of compliance across state agencies rather than having to push for compliance agency by agency,” Lee said.
Outdated language access law
California has a 1973 law, the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, that requires state agencies that serve populations in which 5% of people speak languages other than English to have bilingual staff and translate documents.
However, it has not seen substantial updates for decades, and the COVID-19 pandemic showed that it has become increasingly outdated as the state’s population has changed.
Advocates also point to the law’s vagueness and limited oversight, which can lead to governmental entities not complying with requirements. Some county and city agencies were not aware the law existed and did not have plans in place to comply, according to a 2010 report from California State Auditor’s Office.
At times, officials have used Dymally-Alatorre’s outdated limitations to cut language access. And residents who speak languages other than English face an uphill battle to improve access.
The DMV — which had been offering written driver’s license tests in 32 languages — moved in 2021 to narrow that list to just the seven required by Dymally-Alatorre as part of a “Knowledge Testing Modernization project.”
Although the DMV ultimately opted not to make the change, it’s a clear example of how Dymally-Alatorre standards can work against greater language access.
In another case, language advocates had to undertake a years-long effort to improve poor language access for residents seeking unemployment benefits through the Employment Development Department.
Nonprofits in July 2020 filed a Department of Fair Employment and Housing complaint against the EDD, and a September 2020 report commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom showed that EDD claimants who “speak languages other than English have a difficult, if not impossible, time navigating the unemployment application process.”
A 2022 settlement between advocates and the EDD and a $21 million budget allocation requires the agency to improve services for non-English-speakers with phone interpretation services, document translation and online multilingual access portals.
Advocates, lawmakers push for better language access
In the Assembly, committee chairs can request interpretation, but only with advance notice, said Katie Talbot, spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood. Hearing agendas are available only in English, she said.
“If there is an individual who needs translation or disability accommodation, we encourage them to reach out to the Committee Chair or the Assembly ADA Coordinator in advance,” Talbot said in an email.
Despite fluency in English, Vanessa Terán has intentionally spoken in Spanish for about the last two years when giving public comments at Assembly subcommittee hearings.
But each time, no translation was provided after the comment. That changed after Carrillo translated Terán’s comments at a budget hearing last February.
“That’s the first time that I felt recognized as a constituent, as a community member and as an ally by a legislative representative,” said Terán, a policy director at Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, the largest indigenous serving organization in California.
Terán uses Spanish to ensure that limited English-speaking groups, particularly indigenous communities, are accounted for. The goal is to encourage diverse populations to feel comfortable participating in government services. Terán called not allowing someone to speak their native language a “theft.”
“If I don’t set that example, no one else is going to do it,” said Terán. “And we’re never going to open up an opportunity for someone else to do it in their language.”
Currently, Terán said the state government is not structured as a “participatory system” for everyone. Terán recalled instances where children in Spanish-speaking households will often serve as interpreters for parents navigating public hearings.
Carrillo said she feels a “certain level of responsibility and accountability” to translate for callers commenting in Spanish, to make sure their communities and issues are represented, particularly essential and low-wage workers seeking support.
“The second level of responsibility that I have felt in chairing the hearings has been the importance of my colleagues to understand what is being said,” Carrillo said. “And for the audience, and for those watching and listening, to understand what is being said. Because when you don’t, you don’t understand the urgency behind the request or the ask.”
She said it’s not necessary to “reinvent the wheel” when it comes to improving interpretation at legislative hearings.
“Financial institutions already have different translation and interpretation services, even over the phone,” Carrillo said. “We can try to test things out in terms of what works best when someone is here in person. Or if we continue to use the remote calling system ... I think we currently use an AT&T service. That service also provides an interpretation opportunity as we move forward.”
Possible solutions?
Carrillo and Assemblymembers recently discussed the state’s need to improve its language access at a budget subcommittee hearing.
The 2022 budget provides $5 million for a Government Operations Agency language access pilot program, which will select one department to test new practices. Some of the money will also go towards “translation for state administrative and legislative hearings to overcome language and cultural barriers to government services,” a committee staff report said.
Both Carrillo and Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, talked about their experiences growing up in households with families that didn’t speak English at home.
“We grew up where we speak languages other than English at home,” Ting said. “It’s not uncommon and so I think it is very important.”
Carrillo compared needed language access improvements to “trying to patch a roof during a storm.”
“And there comes a point where we just need to replace the roof,” she said. “And that’s something I think that we’re trying to manage and deal with, while at the same time trying to really create opportunities for us to have the right type of staff and resources to actually move a political agenda forward that really it truly is about equity and language and cultural access and competency.”
"It doesn’t always go so smoothly when language becomes a barrier in state government.
California has the largest population of residents who speak other languages at home. But even at the highest levels, the state has trouble providing language access to those seeking to participate in civic life.
And the pattern holds for people trying to obtain government services and benefits at agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The problem is so pervasive that even lawmakers like Carrillo, who is bilingual and grew up speaking Spanish at home, end up performing extra work to make sure non-English-speakers are included.
“Coming from a Spanish-speaking household, and as a child translating for my parents, I understand on a personal level just how difficult it is,” Carrillo said. “And also how challenging and difficult it is to feel that you can be heard in a space like this.”
California language diversity
With over 200 languages and dialects spoken across the state, California is one of the most linguistically diverse regions in the world. That distinction continues to complicate the dissemination of critical information.
Statewide, most households that fall into this category speak Spanish, followed by languages from Asia and the Pacific Islands, Census data shows.
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California’s percentage of households that speak languages other than English far exceeds even states with similarly diverse populations, like Texas and New York. About 35% of Texans speak other languages at home, as do 30% of New Yorkers.
At a subcommittee hearing last Wednesday Asian Americans were highlighted as one of the groups most affected by language access issues.
“Asian Americans are a diverse population, belonging to dozens of ethnic groups with significant linguistic diversity that puts them at continuous inequitable disadvantage in regards to representation and resource allocation,” said Faith Lee, a legislative director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice California.
About one-third of Asian Americans speak only English in their homes, according to the Pew Research Center. The remaining 66% speak a language other than English. Asian Americans also have the highest rates of limited English proficiency at 35%, according to a report from the Center for American Progress. The Census Bureau defines limited English proficiency as those who do not speak English “very well.”
Lee said language access was identified as the most urgent issue in a recent Asian Americans Advancing Justice California survey of 57 community organizations. Limited English proficiency often results in barriers to services like health care, mental health and employment assistance.
Lee pushed for the state to avoid solutions that rely on digital translation tools, such as Google Translate, and set standards to provide a minimum number of interpreters and translators."
In recent years, interpretation in RI's District, Family and Superior courts has improved, but not in municipal and probate courts, where language interpretation is often informal and haphazard. Non-English speakers often bring their own interpreters, who may not be fluent in English themselves. Sometimes translation is done by a city worker who may be bilingual but not professionally trained Judicial experts say an untrained translator is often worse than having no translator at all, and can violate a defendant's due process rights. And the current patchwork system may violate federal law
When Andrew Horwitz started practicing in Rhode Island District Court in 1995, language interpretation in the state courts was haphazard.
“It was sometimes complete strangers in the audience,” Horwitz, now a law professor at Roger Williams University, said. “Sometimes the judge or a sheriff would say, ‘Hey, anybody here speak Spanish? Anybody here speak Portuguese?’ And they’d just call this random person up who may also be a defendant facing a criminal charge.”
Court staffers were regularly pulled from their jobs to translate hearings, a task they had not been trained to do, he recalled. Judges also allowed people with limited English proficiency to interpret for those who had none. Often, those people had a stake in the case, making them unreliable. And they didn’t understand that court interpreting didn’t mean having a conversation with the defendant, then paraphrasing it for the judge. That made the court record unclear.
The situation was “embarrassing, disgraceful, [and] clearly unconstitutional,” Horwitz said.
Over the years, interpretation in the District, Family and Superior courts has improved. Those courts now have seven full-time Spanish-language interpreters and hire freelancers for other languages. They also have an additional part-time Spanish interpreter, courts spokesperson Lexi Kriss said in an email. In 2021, state court interpreters assisted with 7,750 events in 31 languages, according to the judiciary’s annual report. More than 7,000 were for Spanish.
But in the local municipal and probate courts, people still frequently bring their own interpreters, who are not always fluent in English themselves, or rely on a city employee who may be bilingual but not professionally trained. At least one court sometimes resorts to Google Translate. Another has used a police prosecutor to interpret for the people she’s supposed to be prosecuting.
Judicial experts see problems with this status quo and suggest it may violate federal law or even be unconstitutional. Being a court interpreter requires much more than knowing two languages. A court interpreter needs to be able to translate quickly, with no additions or substitutions. And when people don’t receive professional interpretation and can’t understand the proceedings in which they are involved, it can negatively impact the way they perceive the legal process and muddy the official court record, experts say.
Should a prosecutor interpret for a defendant? Critics see 'huge conflict of interest'
Wearing a brown knit hat, pink sneakers and colorful sweatshirt emblazoned with a desert scene, Merita Rosario appeared before Judge Daniel McKiernan in Providence Municipal Court on March 16. She had come to resolve three red-light tickets and needed a Spanish interpreter, so McKiernan told her, “We’re going to get a translator, but she’s going to step in.”
The woman he was referring to was not a court interpreter, but Cynthia Rodriguez, the police prosecutor covering his courtroom.
The judge began playing the videos of Rosario’s car. “I forgot what he said,” Rodriguez said of McKiernan at one point, as she translated the date of one of the videos. Experts say interpreters are supposed to act as a conduit and not interject, but at another point, Rosario asked a question and Rodriguez answered it in Spanish before translating the exchange into English.
More:'Dark cloud' over District Court: Ex admin alleges coverups, dysfunction and retaliation
McKiernan forgave one of Rosario’s tickets and gave her 30 days to pay $170 for the other two.
Then, Rodriguez interpreted for another person who only spoke Spanish fluently.
Asked afterward if she is professionally trained as an interpreter or bilingual, Rodriguez said she was bilingual and walked out of the courtroom.
Experts interviewed for this story were critical of McKiernan’s decision to have a prosecutor interpret.
“That’s a huge conflict of interest,” said Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a Brown professor who studies racial inequities in the legal system.
Steven Brown, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, said, “That is completely inappropriate.
“It should be obvious that a person who is prosecuting a charge should not be tasked with the responsibility of interpreting for the defendant that they are prosecuting. The conflict is blatant and that should never happen.”
Why having an untrained interpreter is sometimes 'worse than nothing'
A court interpreter has a complicated job that demands a high skill level. They must be able to navigate legalese and vocabulary ranging from street slang to sophisticated language from an expert witness, lawyer or judge. They are required to interpret at a person’s language level, so a court “should be hearing exactly what that person is saying and how they’re saying it,” without additions or omissions, said Brooke Bogue, the manager of the Language Access Services Section at the National Center for State Courts.
Court interpreters are often certified. For Rhode Island state courts, that means they have undergone training and passed written and oral examinations.
But as McKiernan did in Rosario's case, many local courts in Rhode Island appear to still use people who are bilingual — but not professionally trained — as court interpreters, according to local attorneys and judges, as well as a reporter's observation of hearings in multiple cities.
Language skills alone are not a substitute for professional training, according to Bogue.
“A bilingual person cannot interpret. … There should be no assumption they have any interpreting skills whatsoever,” she said.
Using a bilingual person instead of a professional interpreter is “worse than nothing,” Bogue argued, because English speakers involved in a proceeding will assume the communication was error-free when it likely wasn’t.
“Their job is to linguistically place the limited English-proficient court user in the exact same position as an English speaker,” she said. “And if they don’t do that, then basically that person’s access to justice is denied or hindered or could be delayed.”
But the cost of hiring professional interpreters may pose an obstacle to local courts.
At Woonsocket Municipal Court hearings, people usually have to bring someone to interpret on their own, said a clerk who declined to identify herself when a reporter called the court. The city doesn’t have funds to hire people, she said. If someone doesn’t have an interpreter, the city uses Google Translate instead, she said.
In Pawtucket, Sandra Perez, who works in the mayor’s office, helps out as an interpreter for the city’s municipal court. She doesn't have a professional credential, but she was born in Colombia and interpreted in state court when she worked as a paralegal before she got her current job. “I think overall, I can usually get across the point,” she said.
During a recent municipal court session before Judge Jack Gannon, Perez interpreted for one case. Another man needed an interpreter, too, but he had brought his daughter, and Gannon allowed her to translate. Early on, Gannon began discussing the case with the man’s daughter instead of with him, and she stopped translating everything.
More:She wanted a comfortable retirement and made all the right plans. How did it go so wrong?
Gannon dismissed the man’s speeding violation because he was eligible under Rhode Island’s good driving statute and ordered him to pay $60 in court costs.
In a short interview, Gannon said he’s concerned about whether the person who needs an interpreter comprehends everything in these cases. Asked if he thinks everything gets translated when a family member interprets, he said, “Minimally, I worry about it, but it doesn’t really enter into my thought process when I make a decision.” He uses eye contact to try to figure out if the person who needs an interpreter understands and thinks a family member would be aligned with the case party, he said.
Gonzalez Van Cleve, the Brown professor, said cases where relatives act as interpreters are problematic, because “they themselves as a lay person don’t understand the court proceedings.”
Higher stakes in probate cases involving immigration
In Rhode Island probate courts, the situation is largely the same.
Providence attorney Amber Lewis, who handles minor guardianship cases for children pursuing special immigrant juvenile status, said most probate courts require her to bring someone to interpret.
In cases where a judge takes testimony and speaks with her clients, “sometimes that lack of certified interpretation causes the clients issues,” she said. “Their family or friends [who are interpreting] aren’t completely fluent in English and so don’t know how to translate correctly.”
The improvised interpreters struggle with legal vocabulary, and that can create delays. It may also be unclear whose words are actually being translated, Lewis said.
The stakes are higher in these hearings than in many municipal court cases, because minor guardianship is a step in a process that can lead to these children getting a green card.
Janne Reisch, a Westerly-based solo practitioner who also represents immigrant children in minor guardianships, thinks every town court should provide interpreters to those who need them. The current situation “impinges on my client’s right to have equal access to the judiciary,” she said.
The smaller probate courts tell her to bring her own interpreter. She doesn’t think she has a legal obligation to do so but doesn’t want to upset clerks and judges, so she hires a bilingual person to interpret, usually a paralegal from another law office. That places a burden on her clients, who are almost exclusively low income, because they have to foot the bill. “I don’t think that’s fair,” she said.
Last year, one probate court, which she declined to name, insisted she bring a professionally certified interpreter instead of someone who was just bilingual. After she provided legal and constitutional analysis, the court agreed to hire a certified interpreter and pay for that expense.
Using children as interpreters, and other workarounds
Some local courts have found ways to provide court users with professional interpreters but still don’t use them universally.
Central Falls Municipal Court Judge Joseph Molina Flynn said that when someone doesn’t speak English and hasn’t brought anyone to translate, he may continue the case and ask them to bring someone with them next time. He and his clerk speak Spanish and can pick up on interpretation errors. If someone can’t find a person to interpret or if they have a trial, the city hires professional interpreters from the state courts. Molina Flynn's court sessions occur in the evening, when those interpreters are available.
That’s something he advocated for when he became the judge two years ago. “The community here is pretty much solely Spanish-speaking, and as an immigrant myself, I can understand the difficulties of dealing with complex things in a language that is not your own,” he said.
Hispanic Bar Association interim president Diony Garcia – who was a Providence Housing Court judge until April – said the housing court uses a phone service, Language Line Solutions, that provides professional judicial interpreters.
If Garcia weren’t a Spanish speaker, he thinks a lot might have gotten lost in translation. That’s why it’s important to have diverse judges, he said. He could tell when someone said, “I understand,” but really didn’t, for instance.
People would come to his court with their adult or high school-age child, making them miss school or work. For minor matters or setting a new date, he would sometimes allow a family member to interpret, but he was wary. It’s an unfair position for young people to be in, he said. Some relatives would supply extra information in an effort to be helpful or try to act as a speaker for the actual case party. “You don’t want somebody effectively practicing law illegally in front of me,” he said.
He was cautious, because he worries that if a person doesn’t understand what’s happening in court, they’re being denied due process.
For a formal hearing or trial, Judge Paul Ragosta of the Housing Court insists on a professional interpreter. But in one case, before he learned about the phone service, he allowed a boy who was around 10 to 14 years old to interpret for his mother, who was a tenant and not an actual case party, during a substantive hearing involving their landlord.
Providence Housing Court appeals, unlike those of most other local courts, go directly to the state Supreme Court. That means the right to appeal is not automatic. And unlike many municipal court appeals, the case won’t be heard again from the beginning. Rather, the Supreme Court would only consider legal errors.
It’s important for the housing court record to be accurate, and Ragosta said it’s “dubious” that a record with interpretation by a 10-year-old child would be.
Does the current situation violate federal law?
Horwitz says it’s unconstitutional not to provide court participants with a trained and professionally certified interpreter.
Even in minor cases, he said, “If you can’t understand the proceedings, or you don’t understand the proceedings perfectly, then the proceeding becomes a sham, and the public perception of the fairness of the system is seriously impaired.” It can damage the way a non-English speaker views the legal process in which they’re involved.
Under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, no one can be discriminated against because of their race or national origin by a program that receives federal funds, as do many of the municipalities that run these courts. That often means those with limited English proficiency must receive language interpretation or translation services.
ACLU director Brown said, “Somebody who doesn’t have any official certification or no formal qualifications generally does not meet the standard that the Title VI regulations require.”
Rhode Island does not require cities and towns to have municipal courts. If they decide to operate one, Horwitz said, they must fund it appropriately, and that should include paying for professional interpretation.
“They’re raising money for the municipality, and to do it on the cheap, with disregard for the rights of the people who are litigating in those courts, I think it’s inexcusable,” he said.
Noble Brigham is a senior journalism student at Brown University. He wrote this story under the guidance of retired Journal reporter and Brown professor Tracy Breton. Email him atnoble_brigham@brown.edu
In recent years, interpretation in RI's District, Family and Superior courts has improved, but not in municipal and probate courts, where language interpretation is often informal and haphazard.
Non-English speakers often bring their own interpreters, who may not be fluent in English themselves. Sometimes translation is done by a city worker who may be bilingual but not professionally trained
Judicial experts say an untrained translator is often worse than having no translator at all, and can violate a defendant's due process rights. And the current patchwork system may violate federal law
When Andrew Horwitz started practicing in Rhode Island District Court in 1995, language interpretation in the state courts was haphazard.
“It was sometimes complete strangers in the audience,” Horwitz, now a law professor at Roger Williams University, said. “Sometimes the judge or a sheriff would say, ‘Hey, anybody here speak Spanish? Anybody here speak Portuguese?’ And they’d just call this random person up who may also be a defendant facing a criminal charge.”
Court staffers were regularly pulled from their jobs to translate hearings, a task they had not been trained to do, he recalled. Judges also allowed people with limited English proficiency to interpret for those who had none. Often, those people had a stake in the case, making them unreliable. And they didn’t understand that court interpreting didn’t mean having a conversation with the defendant, then paraphrasing it for the judge. That made the court record unclear.
The situation was “embarrassing, disgraceful, [and] clearly unconstitutional,” Horwitz said.
Over the years, interpretation in the District, Family and Superior courts has improved. Those courts now have seven full-time Spanish-language interpreters and hire freelancers for other languages. They also have an additional part-time Spanish interpreter, courts spokesperson Lexi Kriss said in an email. In 2021, state court interpreters assisted with 7,750 events in 31 languages, according to the judiciary’s annual report. More than 7,000 were for Spanish.
But in the local municipal and probate courts, people still frequently bring their own interpreters, who are not always fluent in English themselves, or rely on a city employee who may be bilingual but not professionally trained. At least one court sometimes resorts to Google Translate. Another has used a police prosecutor to interpret for the people she’s supposed to be prosecuting.
Judicial experts see problems with this status quo and suggest it may violate federal law or even be unconstitutional. Being a court interpreter requires much more than knowing two languages. A court interpreter needs to be able to translate quickly, with no additions or substitutions. And when people don’t receive professional interpretation and can’t understand the proceedings in which they are involved, it can negatively impact the way they perceive the legal process and muddy the official court record, experts say.
Should a prosecutor interpret for a defendant? Critics see 'huge conflict of interest'
Wearing a brown knit hat, pink sneakers and colorful sweatshirt emblazoned with a desert scene, Merita Rosario appeared before Judge Daniel McKiernan in Providence Municipal Court on March 16. She had come to resolve three red-light tickets and needed a Spanish interpreter, so McKiernan told her, “We’re going to get a translator, but she’s going to step in.”
The woman he was referring to was not a court interpreter, but Cynthia Rodriguez, the police prosecutor covering his courtroom.
The judge began playing the videos of Rosario’s car. “I forgot what he said,” Rodriguez said of McKiernan at one point, as she translated the date of one of the videos. Experts say interpreters are supposed to act as a conduit and not interject, but at another point, Rosario asked a question and Rodriguez answered it in Spanish before translating the exchange into English.
McKiernan forgave one of Rosario’s tickets and gave her 30 days to pay $170 for the other two.
Then, Rodriguez interpreted for another person who only spoke Spanish fluently.
Asked afterward if she is professionally trained as an interpreter or bilingual, Rodriguez said she was bilingual and walked out of the courtroom.
Experts interviewed for this story were critical of McKiernan’s decision to have a prosecutor interpret.
“That’s a huge conflict of interest,” said Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, a Brown professor who studies racial inequities in the legal system.
Steven Brown, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, said, “That is completely inappropriate.
“It should be obvious that a person who is prosecuting a charge should not be tasked with the responsibility of interpreting for the defendant that they are prosecuting. The conflict is blatant and that should never happen.”
Why having an untrained interpreter is sometimes 'worse than nothing'
A court interpreter has a complicated job that demands a high skill level. They must be able to navigate legalese and vocabulary ranging from street slang to sophisticated language from an expert witness, lawyer or judge. They are required to interpret at a person’s language level, so a court “should be hearing exactly what that person is saying and how they’re saying it,” without additions or omissions, said Brooke Bogue, the manager of the Language Access Services Section at the National Center for State Courts.
Court interpreters are often certified. For Rhode Island state courts, that means they have undergone training and passed written and oral examinations.
But as McKiernan did in Rosario's case, many local courts in Rhode Island appear to still use people who are bilingual — but not professionally trained — as court interpreters, according to local attorneys and judges, as well as a reporter's observation of hearings in multiple cities.
Language skills alone are not a substitute for professional training, according to Bogue.
“A bilingual person cannot interpret. … There should be no assumption they have any interpreting skills whatsoever,” she said.
Using a bilingual person instead of a professional interpreter is “worse than nothing,” Bogue argued, because English speakers involved in a proceeding will assume the communication was error-free when it likely wasn’t.
“Their job is to linguistically place the limited English-proficient court user in the exact same position as an English speaker,” she said. “And if they don’t do that, then basically that person’s access to justice is denied or hindered or could be delayed.”
But the cost of hiring professional interpreters may pose an obstacle to local courts...."
Cambridge will install new street signs with road names translated into the Massachusett language in a multi-year initiative to recognize the city’s historical ties to its Indigenous residents.
By Anya Sesay and Frank S. Zhou, Contributing Writers
Cambridge will install new street signs with road names translated into the Massachusett language in a multi-year initiative to recognize the city’s historical ties to its Indigenous residents.
The project, first approved as part of the city’s 2021 participatory budgeting cycle, will begin with roughly 80 translated street signs on First Street through Eighth Street. An accompanying website will allow residents and passersby to access audio of sign name pronunciations and context around the history of the Massachusett people in Cambridge.
Sage B. Carbone — a member of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island who first proposed the initiative — said Indigenous translations on signs in reservations are commonplace, but the project represents a milestone for Indigenous recognition in Cambridge.
“This is a unique project,” said Carbone, a Cambridge resident. “This is the first time that — in any of our research — I found that the signs are being put on municipal city land.”
The initiative is part of the city’s African American and Indigenous Peoples Historical Reckoning Project, which received $180,000 in funding during the 2021 Participatory Budgeting cycle.
In total, Cambridge allocated $1 million of the city’s 2021 budget to “one-time capital projects to improve Cambridge,” according to the city’s website. Funds for the project became available on July 1, 2022.
While Carbone praised the passage of the initiative, she said the timeline for its implementation has been drawn out since its approval.
“I waited for quite a while — a few months, and then nearly a year — and I hadn’t heard anything about whether the project was moving forward and who was being engaged with it,” Carbone said.
After the initiative’s approval, the city assigned the Cambridge Historical Commission to oversee the project. The commission assembled an advisory group, composed of Carbone and several other volunteers and experts, to select the language, context, and location of the signage.
Sarah L. Burks, the preservation planner at the Historical Commission who assembled the advisory group, acknowledged the delays.
“We wanted, definitely, for members of the Indigenous community to be guiding the process,” Burks said. “So it did take a while to get that discussion flowing.”
Burks added that she was “confused initially” by the purpose of the initiative, but she began to understand its importance after conversations with the advisory group.
“Through the conversation and in our advisory group, it came to be understandable to me that this is more about normalizing seeing the language and its written form,” Burks said. “To be a visual reminder of our Native culture in our day-to-day world.”
Carbone said the signage initiative is just the beginning of a series of reforms she would like to enact “once we get more of the budget of the general funds towards activities, events and engagement.”
She added that she hopes the project will help mitigate what she described as a lack of city-wide programming recognizing Indigenous residents of Cambridge.
“This year, as an example, there were — to my knowledge — zero events that the city hosted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” Carbone said.
City spokesperson Jeremy C. Warnick wrote in a statement that Cambridge has previously organized Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations.
“In the past, the Office of the Mayor has celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day with special story times, film screenings have been hosted, and the Cambridge Public Library has compiled a list of books for children, teens, and adults who want to learn more about Indigenous history and culture,” Warnick said.
According to Carbone, the signage project will next move to the city’s Traffic, Parking, and Transportation Department, which will “actually do the physical signage.”
“Cambridge and Boston have always been places where many languages were spoken,” Carbone said. “This is the first time that Cantabrigians will be seeing Indigenous words on their everyday commutes.”
"Cambridge will install new street signs with road names translated into the Massachusett language in a multi-year initiative to recognize the city’s historical ties to its Indigenous residents.
Cambridge will install new street signs with road names translated into the Massachusett language in a multi-year initiative to recognize the city’s historical ties to its Indigenous residents.
The project, first approved as part of the city’s 2021 participatory budgeting cycle, will begin with roughly 80 translated street signs on First Street through Eighth Street. An accompanying website will allow residents and passersby to access audio of sign name pronunciations and context around the history of the Massachusett people in Cambridge.
Sage B. Carbone — a member of the Northern Narragansett Indian Tribe of Rhode Island who first proposed the initiative — said Indigenous translations on signs in reservations are commonplace, but the project represents a milestone for Indigenous recognition in Cambridge.
“This is a unique project,” said Carbone, a Cambridge resident. “This is the first time that — in any of our research — I found that the signs are being put on municipal city land.”
The initiative is part of the city’s African American and Indigenous Peoples Historical Reckoning Project, which received $180,000 in funding during the 2021 Participatory Budgeting cycle.
In total, Cambridge allocated $1 million of the city’s 2021 budget to “one-time capital projects to improve Cambridge,” according to the city’s website. Funds for the project became available on July 1, 2022..."
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