Differentiation with Translation Apps

            As a language teacher, translation apps and devices matter a lot to me. I have come to terms with the fact that my students will be using these technologies to complete their assignments. I work to develop activities and exercises that stress skills that are augmented by this technology. These tools can be helpful. They allow my students to spend more cognitive ability developing ideas and arguments instead of mentally translating their work. But until today I never considered these apps can be used in a differentiated manner. I was monitoring my students writing an essay and one student was using an app to translate sentences he wrote in his home language into English when it occurred to me; “reverse translation.”

            What mean by “reverse translation” is for students to write a passage in English and then run it through the translator into their home language to see how well their English text reflects their intended message. This can add a middle layer of classroom differentiation using these apps. At the very top of the class are the strongest students who rarely use these apps and focus on communicating their ideas in English. The weakest students will still traditionally use translator apps, enabling them to focus on their message and organization. Reverse translation might be an aid for the middle tranches of students. Most of my students do not need full-scale translation assistance. My experience with these students is that they either 1) use a translator app and are not practicing using English effectively, or 2) lower their goals and restrict their ideas to fit their English ability. Reverse translation will give these students opportunities to create something in English to the best of their abilities and then self-check their work in a form they can easily understand.

            However, this sort of differentiation does require a lot of attention from the teacher. Because these apps have only a single purpose, the differentiation comes from how the apps are used. The teacher may need to carefully observe what the students are doing. Traditional translation requires less work, so students who should be reverse translating need to be motivated to put in the extra work of writing in their target language instead of their home language.