Tips for Working with Interpreters

Plan for Extra Time

When planning for meetings with families that speak a language other than English, keep in mind that you’ll need to provide a trained interpreter so that parents can fully participate in the conversation. Generally, for IEP meetings and other special education meetings the consecutive style of interpretation will be utilized.

In consecutive interpretation, the interpreter re-expresses each message, or a manageable portion of a message, after a speaker has expressed it but before the speaker continues. This allows for a more back and forth conversation as well as input and questions from the parent. Remember to pause for interpretation every couple sentences and plan that the interaction will take twice as long as it would without interpretation.

Interpreting is a lot of work, and this may be the first time a parent is learning about the complex special education system. Interpreted meetings should be no longer than 2 hours (one hour for information sharing plus one hour for interpretation). Also, the interpreter may need to request a 5-10 minute break to refresh. If additional information must be presented, plan to schedule a follow up meeting. And remember to thank your interpreters for the important work they do!

Contact spedinterpreters@mpls.k12.mn.us with questions. For more information visit: https://goo.gl/YuRSsD