Have you struggled while trying to communicate with ELL students or parents that don't speak English well? Google has been working on some tools to help with that. Clarkstown requested to be part of the Beta testing and Google has accepted us into the program.
Using Google Meet captions, you can speak in English and watch as the close captioning translates automatically into French, Spanish, German, or Portuguese at this time. Additional languages will be added as the program progresses. While we know that Google translate is not perfect, neither are most other translation programs, it is certainly a great feature to help bridge the communication gap.
How would you use this? Here are a few scenarios that you might want to give this a try:
- You are emailing parents about a project or an upcoming event and you need to communicate this information to everyone. Record a short message on Meet and have the translate feature turned on so the recording captures the translated captions as well as the spoken English. Then share that recording in a link in your email.
- At meet the teacher, have Google Meet open on your board without the camera running if you prefer, just having the mic turned on is all you need. As you go through your presentation, your words will be translated in the closed captioning section of the screen for any parents that are in the room and struggling with understanding the language.
How do I try it?
You’ll be able to see captions in languages different from the spoken language. This Beta currently supports meetings in English with live captions translated to Spanish, Portuguese, French and German. Additional language support will be added in the future. You will be able to use these captions in the Meet application on Web. iOS and Android will be supported later this year.
You can enable Translated Captions in your meetings on Google Meet, by following the steps below.
- Click the 3 dots at the bottom of the Meet screen
- Click on Settings
- Click Captions
- Turn on Captions
- Turn on Translate Captions (it should turn on automatically)
- Select one of the languages for the translation
I just tried it out. Not bad, however I look forward to when they are able to translate both ways. Right now, the parents will be able to read when is being said. Hopefully, soon, the teachers or others will be able to read what the parents are trying to say... fingers crossed it will be soon!
ReplyDeleteThis feature is powered by Google Translate which now does have a "conversation" mode allowing two way translation. Hopefully, it is something that will be worked in.
ReplyDelete