Policies

Avoid policies that ban or greatly restrict MT use 

It might surprise many instructors to know that their policies on machine translation do in fact impact how students use these tools.  However, some instructor policies (e.g., encouraging students to use MT for single words) can lead students down unproductive or error-laden paths. 

Avoiding overly restrictive or prescriptive policies would avoid these pitfalls. 

Helpful to updating policies on MT are open discussions with students about the tools that they use for language learning. Below are some starter discussion questions:

1.     What are the most common online tools that you use?

2.     How do you use these tools?

3.     Which tools do you think work best for you and why?

4.     You may have been told in the past that using machine translation tools, such as Google Translate, is cheating.

a.     Why do you think some instructors might consider MT use cheating?

b.     Do you consider it cheating? Why or why not?

c.     Do you think we should consider it to be cheating in this class?

Finally, instructors might also consider creating policies about acceptable resources for language learning collaboratively with students.

Redirect time and energy to training and retooling assignments

Rather than spending time enforcing restrictive policies on MT, try training students on how to use MT tools or shifting assignments to encourage more thoughtful use of all tools.