Teaching a session in another language.

Preparing: the kit, the country block and the words

Read the kit in English first, the same as any instructor. Then work out how you will say its key words in the language of the session.

This page is for instructors and hosts who teach a Fluent, Reach or Voice session kit in Spanish, French or another language. Sessions are taught in the language the host asks for, and the written plan sets the language for each series (see the teaching guide’s interpreters and mixed languages section). The kits, handouts and worksheets are in English.

Read the kit and the country block

• Read the whole kit, especially Take care, and the Where you are teaching block for the country you are in, as the teaching guide asks. Open each official source in the block.
• Teach the country block for where the session is, whatever language you teach in. A Spanish session in the United States uses the United States block, not sources from another Spanish-speaking country.
• Note the numbers, dates, names and addresses in the block. You will read those out exactly as written, not translate or round them.

Words that don’t translate one to one

Many money, health and government words name something that works differently in each country, so a dictionary word can mislead. Even in English, the glossary marks words that belong to one country, such as deductible (United States) and excess (Australia). Before the session:

• Look up each key word in the glossary, Words you’ll hear, so you know exactly what it means in English.
• Then find the word the official source uses in your language. Some agencies publish the same page in two languages: HealthCare.gov’s glossary entry for deductible has a Spanish twin on CuidadoDeSalud.gov, deducible, run by the same agency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with the same explanation. Its whole Spanish glossary is a good place to start for Reach.
• In the United States, USAGov en Español, from the General Services Administration, calls itself the government’s official guide to information and services in Spanish. Use its words for government programs and offices.
• In Canada, the government’s pages are in English and French, and Canada.ca’s French pages link to the same page in English. For example, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada’s French page gives its French name, Agence de la consommation en matière financière du Canada.
• Where no official page exists in your language, use the English word, the one people will see on the letter, bill or form, and explain it in your language. Write both on the board.
• Keep a short list of the words for each kit, in English and in your language, with where you found each one. It helps the next instructor, and a language reviewer can check it.

Names

• Say an agency’s or program’s name the way the agency writes it. Translate a name only if the agency itself uses the translation, and say the English name too, because that is what people will see and search for.
• Keep the names Moraph for Good, Fluent, Reach and Voice as they are, as the brand page gives them.

Slides: talk over them, or prepare your own

There are two ways to use the English slides. Choose before the session, and agree it with the host if it is for a whole series.

Talking over the English slides

• Show the kit’s slides as they are and teach in your language. Nothing needs to be checked, and the slide numbers still match the run sheet.
• People see the English words they will meet on forms, letters and websites. Say each one aloud, then explain it.
• Allow more time: reading a slide and explaining it in another language takes longer. Decide in advance what you would drop (see Short on time).

Preparing your own translated slides

• Translate what is on the slides, and add nothing to them. Keep every fact, figure, date, name, web address and source exactly as in the kit, and keep the official English name next to any translated one.
• Keep one slide for each of the kit’s slides, in the same order, so the run sheet and its timings still work.
• Have someone fluent in both languages check the slides against the English before you use them (see What not to do).
• Check them again whenever the kit changes.

Crediting the kit

The kit pages say the kits are free to teach and adapt, and the handouts and worksheets say they are free to copy and adapt. On your own slides or sheets:

• Say where they come from, using the full name “Moraph for Good”, as the brand page asks (not an abbreviation), with the kit’s address on moraph.org so people can find the English original.
• Say that it is a translation, who made it, and that if it differs from the English or from an official source, those are right.
• Don’t change the meaning and still call it the kit: an adaptation is yours, and the kit’s Take care list still applies.

Handouts and take-home sheets

The take-home handouts are in English. Give them out as they are, and point people to official pages in their own language where those exist.

• Hand out the English sheet for your country. It lists the official sources and free help for that country, and they are right even if your explanation was in another language.
• Point out, in your language, what each line on the sheet is for, and write the key words in both languages on the board.
• If people need the handout itself in another language, how they get it is agreed in the written plan with the host and the Moraph lead. Don’t hand out your own unchecked translation.

Official pages in other languages

Where an official service publishes the same information in your participants’ language, point to it alongside the handout. Check that it is the same agency and covers the same thing before you use it. Some that exist today:

• United States, health (Reach): CuidadoDeSalud.gov’s other-language resources lists Marketplace materials and phone numbers in Spanish and in other languages, including Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
• United States, money and scams (Fluent): the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer advice in Spanish, including how to report fraud and identity theft, and IRS en español for tax time.
• United States, voting and elections (Voice): USAGov en Español’s voting and elections page, which includes a directory of state and local election offices. As in any Voice session, point people to the official election office, and never help anyone register or say how to vote.
• United States, any subject: USAGov en Español.
• Canada: Canada.ca in French, and the French page of each federal agency, such as the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.
• Elsewhere: the official sources in each country block, and the free help pages. Some services offer interpreters by phone: the adapting guide names Australia’s, and several Reach kits show people how to ask for one.

What this site has in Spanish and French

Some Commons guides and tools for organizations are in Spanish and French, including security, privacy, payment fraud, accessibility, public records requests and templates. They are written for the people who run organizations. None of them is a session handout. Hosts can also apply to host sessions in Spanish or in French.

Working with an interpreter

Whether a session needs an interpreter, and who arranges one, is agreed in the written plan with the host and the Moraph lead.

The teaching guide covers the basics: meet the interpreter before the session, share the kit and the Take care list, and go through the key words. Official guidance on interpreting, written for health care, adds points that fit a session too:

• Allow time. The Office of Minority Health’s checklist for working with an interpreter notes that everything is said at least twice, once by the speaker and once by the interpreter, unless interpreting is simultaneous.
• Speak in the first person and ask the interpreter to do the same. Face and speak to the participants, not the interpreter.
• Go sentence by sentence. The same checklist warns that several sentences at once can lead to information being left out.
• Mind side comments. Some people who use an interpreter understand English well, the checklist says, so anything you say to others in the room may be understood.
• Interpreters and translators are different. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s guidance on language differences explains that interpreters work from speech or sign, and translators from written text. When there is no written translation, it describes sight translation: an interpreter trained in it reads a written document aloud in another language. That can help with the handout’s key lines.

Family, friends and children

• The same AHRQ guidance says family and friends who interpret may give their own views instead of the person’s, and that it makes a private conversation impossible. In a session, keep to general information when a relative interprets, as the teaching guide says.
• AHRQ says minor children should never be used as interpreters, and NHS England’s guidance on interpreting and translation says using anyone under 16 is not acceptable except when immediate, necessary treatment is needed. Don’t ask a child to interpret for a parent in a session.
• Don’t ask a bilingual participant to interpret for others. They came to learn too. If they offer to help their table, thank them, and keep it to general information.

If you are the bilingual instructor

• Teach in a language only if you are confident explaining money, health or government in it. AHRQ’s guidance warns staff not to “get by” with basic or intermediate skills in health care, and the same care applies to these subjects.
• If you are not, say so before the series. An interpreter, or a co-instructor, is agreed in the written plan with the host and the Moraph lead.

Bilingual and mixed groups

Many rooms have people who prefer different languages, and people who are comfortable in English for some things and not others.

• Ask, don’t assume. AHRQ suggests asking which language people want to speak and which they want to read, since the two can differ. Ask the whole room at the start, as the adapting guide suggests, not one person.
• Remember that stress affects language. AHRQ notes that people who speak English very well may lose that ability when they are sick, tired or frightened. Money and health can be stressful subjects.
• Give each key point in both languages, briefly, rather than running two sessions side by side. Write the key words in both languages on the board, with the English word as it appears on forms.
• For the activity, let people work in pairs or tables who share a language, and let them answer aloud in either language.
• Take questions in either language, and repeat each question in both before answering, so the whole room hears it.
• Hand out the same English handout to everyone, and point each language group to the official pages in its language.

Checking understanding without testing

Nods mean little in any language, and less when people are working in their second language. Check that your explanation landed, not that people passed.

• Use teach-back: ask the room to say how something works in their own words, in whichever language they like. The Office of Minority Health checklist suggests the same near the end of an interpreted conversation. The test is of your explanation, not of them.
• Ask open questions that use the kit’s made-up examples (“What would the person in the example do first?”), not yes-or-no questions.
• Wait longer than usual after a question. Someone may be translating it in their head, or waiting for the interpreter.
• Listen for the key words. If people use the English word from the slide or a correct word in their own language, the term landed. If they use a word that means something different, go over it again for the whole room.
• Never ask anyone to read aloud or to share their own situation, in any language. More ideas are in the teaching guide’s checking understanding section.

What not to do

Most mistakes in another language happen when a fact changes on the way through. These are the ones to avoid.

• Don’t machine-translate a handout and hand it out unchecked. NHS England’s guidance says automated online translation should be avoided because there is no assurance of the quality of the translation, and that documents translated for patients should be translated by competent, trained translators. Anything translated for a session is checked by someone fluent in both languages first. Moraph for Good has a language reviewer volunteer role for reviewing translations of Commons materials and handouts.
• Don’t translate facts on the fly. Read out numbers, dates, deadlines, phone numbers and names exactly as the kit and the official source give them. If a rule is hard to explain in your language, point to the official page rather than paraphrasing it.
• Don’t swap in another country’s sources because they are in the right language. Teach the country block for where the session is.
• Don’t say a service is available in a language unless its own official page says so. Point people to the page, and let them check.
• Don’t add to the kit. Explaining in another language is not a reason to add advice, opinions or examples that are not in it. “Explain, never advise” and the Take care list apply in every language.
• Don’t rely on a child to interpret, or on a bilingual participant to interpret for the room.

If a kit, handout or country block is hard to teach in another language, or a key word has no good equivalent, tell the Moraph lead after the session, or email hello@moraph.org. The language reviewer role exists partly to say when something can’t be translated as written, so the English can change.