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The UA's National Center for Interpretation has received a grant that will enable its researchers to move a model program to the national scene.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, UANews
September 4, 2008

Successful interpreter training practices a University of Arizona center has led locally are now going to schools around the nation with help from a U.S. Department of Education grant.

The National Center for Interpretation Testing, Research and Policy at the UA has received a $600,000 grant from the federal department’s “Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education,” or FIPSE. More than 100 institutions applied, and the UA center was among the few institutions to receive an award.

"Teachers report that their added knowledge of interpreting and translation makes them better, more capable teachers, and the curriculum has given them the gift of students who are excited about learning," said Roseann Dueñas González, the center’s director and principal investigator on the project.

"I’m extremely excited about this project as it will have a significant impact on Latino students’ academic growth, college readiness, and movement into a higher education pathway," she added.

The FIPSE funds will support the center’s “Preparación Online" program.

Agnese Haury, a local philanthropist and UA supporter, contributed matching funds and the UA provost, vice president for research, College of Humanities and University Information Technology Services also provided resources and expertise.

Such support will enable the center – known internationally for its distinguished history of training translators and interpreters – to take its secondary-level curriculum to schools and districts with high populations of bilingual, bicultural Hispanic students.

The project involves redesigning the center's in-service translation and interpretation curriculum while also developing an online program that could then be used to train teachers.

The center has already built an international reputation for training interpreters though a number of successful programs, including the Agnese Haury Institute for Interpretation and through its work developing the Federal Court Interpreter Certification Exam.

The center also helped launch a translation and interpretation major and minor, which is jointly housed in the Spanish and Portugeuese departments as well as the Mexican American Studies Research Center. And the center hosts an intensive summer institute for Tucson-area high school students.

With the newly funded project, the intention is to help improve retention rates, academic achievement and student-teacher interaction among Hispanic students, which fits directly into the University's mission to turn research into practical application.

The expansion of service will happen exclusively online. With the grant, the center will develop a Web-based in-service training for Spanish and English as a Second Language teachers who can then take what they learn and apply it to the classroom.

Armando Valles, assistant director for the nearly 30-year-old UA interpretation center, said that when it comes to in-service teaching, a Web-based model is the "only real efficient method."

He added: “This will also allow the program to be a model for school districts around the country" and allow the center to have a greater impact.

The center will offer curriculum units that it developed to schools around the nation, but will intially target particular schools in five states: Arizona, California, Texas, Illinois and New York.

Educators will be able to easily incorporate the teaching units into their daily curricula just as teachers in the Tucson Unified School District, Sunnyside Unified School District and Amphitheater Public School District have, Dueñas González said.

The center has already pilot tested the Preparación Online program in three Tucson area school districts and involved 15 teachers and more than 250 students, she added.

"The preliminary results of this curriculum project have been remarkable in that both teachers and students are excited about the interpretation and translation practice and materials and the social justice themes that are threaded throughout this curriculum," she said.

The online program offers another benefit, said Paul Gatto, a senior program coordinator with the UA center and the project's co-director.

“Money is tight for everybody, and that goes for school districts,” Gatto said. But the lack of resources should not exclude the educators from necessary training, he added.

This is particularly true for those working with a population that, without successful educational intervention, will be even more marginalized, “limiting access to higher education and employment, with profound implications for our society,” the research team noted in its grant proposal.

The UA research team has found – and a body of literature shows – that certain student populations are more successful when their cultural heritage is embedded in the school curriculum.

“What we’ve found is that, right off the bat, students see that their education is relevant to their daily lives. They see a point in it,” Gatto said. “It acknowledges their language and culture and uses them as a bridge to allow the students to improve their skills in a variety of areas."