Re: Running Multi-Lingual Virtual Sessions
|
Make sure ASL is used!?
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
On Monday, April 13, 2020, Michael Randel < Michael@...> wrote: This is a late reply to Dirk's question...
My colleague Gillian Martin Mehers, based in Geneva, just published yesterday on her recent experience using Zoom with the option for live translation. There is a good amount of preparation required, to smooth out the edges, and to help people be able to participate?in an unfamiliar settings.
It looks intriguing, and full of promise for those who need to work in live?multi-lingual?settings.
Michael
Michael Randel
Randel|Consulting|Associates:??Leading Organizations through Change and Growth Learn more about in Challenging Times
** Based in Washington D.C, supporting organizations globally! **
On Tue, Mar 31, 2020 at 8:42 AM Dirk Slater < dirk@...> wrote: Hello,
I just subscribed to the list over the weekend and am already heartened by the amount of knowledge being shared here and am currently facing a major challenge which I¡¯m hoping I can get some advice/wisdom on.
Basically, I just want to know if people have been running sessions making use of translators/interpreters. If so what platforms have you used to support this? In particular getting different audio channels running with different languages for large group discussions and then organising small group breakouts based on participants languages?
The context:
I¡¯ve been co-hosting a series of workshops for the Red Cross/Red Crescent Society on sharing innovative responses across the national societies. A major goal is to get some real sharing across regions that won¡¯t be siloed by language.? We¡¯ve been running a couple a week over the last few weeks and are getting an enormous response - upwards of 80 participants - and it¡¯s been a blessing to be able to break people up easily in small groups on the fly.
However, we ran into a couple of bumps on our last call when we tried to expand beyond English and also include Spanish Language speakers. We had nearly 130 participants and had a major struggle just getting them into breakout rooms where everyone spoke the same language - we had tried to get people to register in advance and then assign them breakout groups - but as people logged in, we realised many of the people that had pre-registered didn¡¯t show up and we had lots of people that hadn¡¯t registered wanting to participate.? Our quick workaround was to get people to rename themselves with either EN or ES so we could manually organise the room quickly. ?
When we are in large group, we had translation happening while people were speaking, so one or two sentences, translation, then one or two sentences.? This was okay - and there was some key moments where people from Italy, Iran, Columbia and Ecuador were able to share some critical advice - but not optimal in terms of energy and flow. ? We are eyeing Zoom¡¯s language interpretation feature - which apparently allows you to set up separate audio channels by language.? It¡¯s an upgrade that we¡¯re thinking is probably worth the money (it¡¯s a 160GBP a month) but wondered if anyone has experience with it and could attest to its value (or not).
One thing that is working well is using a Google Doc with instructions for how to join/participation, what people should do in small groups and the agenda in multiple languages. ?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
- Dirk
Dirk Slater FabRider
Skype: dirkslater Wire: @FabRider Mobile/Signal: +447903932817 Join our Network on Designing Network Centric Resources:?
|
