Is Google Translation Benefiting ESL Students or Harming Them?

Today I want to talk about the problem of Google translation for assignments in an ESL classroom. To give you an idea how painful it can be not only to an ESL teacher but any teacher, let me describe a scene in one of my classes.

It’s an English as a Second Language class, level A which means that students are beginner learners of the language.

Although they have language basics, they continue developing their vocabulary, learn how to connect ideas logically and grammatically correct.

Some of them might have the struggle to write a sentence. Some of them can create a pretty good paragraph and more. The task students are working on is writing ideas to 3 questions about wisdom, how people become wise, and how an individual can become wise.

Three questions are just the first part of the project about life lessons students learned. It is February, so I know at this point almost every single thing my English learners can and cannot do in English. For most of them, I know the errors they still make. I know the vocabulary they are capable of using and how much they can write.

I have learned to set appropriate expectations for each student because my goal is to help them move from one level of English in their writing to another one. I know that Daniel, my 11th grader, is at level 1 of writing, which means he might need to copy ideas from a sample writing; his writing might be incomprehensible; he uses simple words and phrases to express ideas.

And yet, when I take Daniel’s paper and read his first draft on wisdom and how people get it, I see fancy gerunds, infinitive phrases, elegant academic words sprinkled here and there. This is when I understand that Daniel used Google Translate to write his answers. I feel frustrated and lost at first, and then I give Daniel a 10-minute lecture on how much I’m disinterested in google translated ideas and how much I care about the ideas that he can write himself.

If you are not an ESL teacher, this might seem like a small problem. However, since I teach language to students, I rate and evaluate them based on their “raw” language production, be it sloppy and incomprehensible like Daniel’ usual writing is. And this is the whole point of my profession.

Although I teach them content through language, my purpose is to help them move more efficiently on their language continuum. Google translated answers give me no information about how much and what quality language they can produce. It’s a fraud. A lie. Absolute, undeniable cheating.

Daniel is not the only ELL student who has fallen under the charms of Mr. Google. It is the name my students know, and they also know that I don’t like the “guy.”

I know how pervasive this problem is for my students, and most importantly, how damaging it can be for students’ learning. In this post, I am going to describe three reasons why students use Google Translate and three ways I’ve learned to fight it.

First of all, my students believe that I will never catch them cheating.

They think I will be amazed by how their language improved literally overnight for some mysterious reason. They foolishly think I don’t know them. They don’t realize I see them hiding under books, curling into a ball on the table or under to fetch some ideas easily translated in Google.

It sounds like a much bigger issue to me, the one I will be a fool to fight by myself. A cell phone has become such a huge part of our lives that bringing it to class and flashing it in teacher’s face seems ok, that digging for someone’s answers on the Internet is precisely how learning works.

The potential of using technology is undoubtfully enormous. However, what we haven’t paid much attention to is demonstrating to students the long-term devastating addiction to shortened, emoji-filled type of language that infiltrated the online world.

I probably sound like a dork trying to restore the quality of a language used in the world. But I am deeply disappointed in the society that cares about the appropriately colored emoji not to offend anyone more than grammatically correct language.

The second reason why my students use Google Translation is that they think it’s ok.

In fact, Google Translate is quick access to words if there is one or two you need to fill a conversation. It can be a powerful and quick tool of translanguaging to make sense of information. But it does a terrible job in spitting the language back. Just for one reason – its fake.

Yes, it’s ok to translate a word or a phrase to understand the paragraph. Or it’s ok to look up an academic word that prevents you from understanding a science experience.

But Google Translate is not a tool to learn academic writing. It becomes a dumping machine that spits silly translations. This is what my students don’t know, and that what makes the learning process senseless.

The third reason students use Google Translation is that they think their language is too limited to write.

The word “limited” is entirely negative. Their fear of having a language that needs a lot of development paralyzes any learner and makes you feel you will never make it. Let’s think about it. Do you speak another language? Can you say confidently your second language is as perfect as your mother tongue?

The question is probably no. And it’s true, a journey of learning a language is never over, it’s a continuum, it’s a process, it doesn’t have a finish line. And that what my students struggle with. They all want to be done with language in about 27 months and start being successful.

I have been trying to understand this issue and come up with something that can help me end my frustration and help my students be more involved in their writing.

These are the three things I do in my class to address the problem of Google translation.

Before any significant writing assignment, I have personal conferences with all my students about their levels of writing based on the WIDA rubric.

For those who don’t know or if you are not in ESL, WIDA rubric lists six levels of language attainment in 4 areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing. During a personal conference, I talk to a student, and I interpret a score for him/her.

I explain what they can do, show examples of writing appropriate to their level, and talk about my expectations for them regarding their moving from one level to another.

I demonstrate for them samples of writing that would be their target level. We talk about sentences, the complexity of ideas, logical coherence, comprehensibility, etc. This can be powerful.

And the reason is that students can no longer hide behind the minimum of what they can do and pretend that they exhausted their potential after writing five or six awkward sentences and claiming they completed the task to their best capacity in 10 minutes. They are not allowed to produce work that is below their level, and they know the bar they are expected to reach.

Another way I discourage students from using Google Translation is when I am checking their work while they are drafting.

When they write, I randomly ask for translations of words that seem to be too sophisticated for their particular level. They stumble and pause.

They definitely at a loss and have no idea how to translate it into their first language, which is Spanish in most situations.

I am not a Spanish speaker, so little do I know any of the words they might give me. But students genuinely believe I will catch them on wrong translation. And even if they do give me a word, I can quickly check it with other students.

And finally, I battle Google translated ideas during the revision of writing my students produced.

Let’s believe that students managed to cheat with translation without me catching them. When revision happens, I have a chance to read through their ideas.

Long sentences with too many gerunds and infinitives grab my attention. Overly academic words and clichés capture my attention. Confusing sentences catch my intention.

So, my next step is to ask my students to paraphrase confusing parts, divide long sentences into short ones, substitute overly complicated vocabulary for something simple and comprehensible for everyone. And here is where the grinding starts for my students.

They have to go back to their writing, try to comprehend what they submitted and redo the ideas that do not make sense. At this stage, I manage to address 70 % of google translated sentences.

By no means, my classroom is free of google translated mess. It has been a process. But I am confident that my students know my expectations more than before, and they know accountability for their writing is a must.

Talk to you later!