Teaching Resources
Looking for more? Check out these links for additional information on Machine Translation and Machine Translation Literacy.
Machine Translation Literacy Basics
In addition to the resources below, consult the online module "Machine Translation and Higher Education" created by Lettie Dorst and her team at the University of Leiden in The Netherlands.
Check out our introductory infographics
Files are open access -- feel free to adapt to other languages and let us know so we can link to them!
Machine Translation Literacy: Stop, Think, Act
Chinese (simplified): .JPG
The idea of "Stop. Think. Act." (or sometimes "Stop. Think. Do") has been adopted in several contexts and industries, including childhood education (used to teach social problem solving skills to children or emotional regulation to teens) and in workplace safety (e.g. farm safety). The concept applies to MT Literacy too!
Machine translation: a brief history
Activities
Fun and games with HeyGen: Can you spot the difference?!
Check out the two videos below. The first video (on the left) was recorded on 17 Oct 2023 in English by Prof. Lynne Bowker using Zoom. This original English-language video was then uploaded to the HeyGen AI Video Generator, where it was automatically "translated" into French (video on the right) to be used as part of a presentation/demonstration for a French-speaking audience. The HeyGen tool tries to maintain the original speaker's voice when it renders the content into another language, and it also attempts to synchronize the speaker's mouth movements to the target language pronunciations. It's quite impressive! Nonetheless, a problem crops up within the first 15 seconds of this short video... Can you spot the problem? (Try spotting it yourself first, but if you need a hint, scroll to the bottom of this page). Remember folks: using MT is easy, but using it critically requires thought!
Bowker - CLF - v1 - long.mp4Video 1: This is the original video recorded in English.
Bowker - CLF - v1 - long_FR.mp4Video 2: This is the French-language version that was generated by HeyGen AI Video Generator.
Jigsaw puzzle
Take the infographics to the next level! Challenge your students to solve these jigsaw puzzles to reveal the completed infographics.
MT Literacy FR: TA: Une approche raisonnée
MT: 5 ways to be a savvy user FR: TA: 5 façons de bien s’en tirer
Crossword puzzle
Test your knowledge of machine translation literacy with this fun interactive online crossword puzzle. NOTE: if the answer has more than one word, leave a blank square between the words. Good luck!
Intro to Machine Translation Literacy - with audio.mp4Introductory slide show on MT literacy (initially prepared for a first-year course introducing translation to students NOT majoring in translation)
Free Open Educational Resource (OER): Chapter on MT Literacy from De-mystifying Translation
De-mystifying Translation: Introducing Translation to Non-translators is an OER textbook that aims to present the basics of translation to people outside the profession. Chapter 6: Machine translation is dedicated to the type of translation tool most widely used by people outside the language professions: automatic machine translation. Following a brief history of machine translation dating back to the 1940s, this chapter thoroughly examines more recent data-driven approaches to machine translation, including the artificial-intelligence-based neural machine translation. A key goal of this chapter is to assist readers with the development of their own machine translation literacy skills, such as learning to assess the risks of employing unedited machine translations in high-stakes versus low-stakes scenarios. The chapter ends with some discussion points, practical exercises, and suggestions for further reading.
The content is free to download and use. If you would like to share this content with others, please share the LINK rather than the PDF file. By sharing the link, the publisher will be able to track how many users are interacting with the content. This will hopefully provide evidence about the benefits of making content available in open access.
Free Open Educational Resources (OER): eBooks on getting better translations by preparing translation friendly texts
Bowker, L. (2024) "Garbage in, garbage out!" eCampusOntario Open Library.
Garbage in, garbage out! explains how the quality of the texts you write affects the quality of the translations of those texts, especially when the translations come from tools like Google Translate. Learn how to write in a translation friendly way to ensure that readers can get the most out of your texts, no matter which language they speak.
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Médiocre à l’entrée = médiocre à la sortie! explique comment la qualité des textes que vous écrivez se répercute sur la qualité de la traduction de ces mêmes textes, surtout lorsque les traductions proviennent d’outils comme Google Traduction. Apprenez à rédiger vos textes pour en optimiser la traduction : chaque personne qui les lira pourra ainsi tirer le meilleur parti de vos textes, peu importe la langue qu’elle parle.
Bowker, L. (2024) « Médiocre à l’entrée = Médiocre à la sortie! » eCampus Ontario Bibliothèque Ouverte.
Free Open Educational Resources (OER): eBooks on localizing texts into Canadian English and French - v2
Bowker, L. (2023). "Translating for Canada, eh? v2", eCampus Ontario Open Library
Version 2 now available! Do you need to translate for a Canadian audience? We’ve got you covered! This ebook briefly introduces the concepts of translation and localization and then presents a range of free online tools and resources, including term banks, bilingual concordancers, tools for comparing language varieties, machine translation tools, ChatGPT and language portals. In each case, the tools and resources that are presented have a distinctly Canadian flavour to help translators to localize texts into Canadian English and Canadian French. For each tool or resource, there is a short practical exercise to get you started. What are you waiting for, eh?
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Maintenant disponible - version 2! Devez-vous traduire pour un public canadien? Nous avons ce qu’il vous faut! Ce livre numérique aborde brièvement les concepts de traduction et de localisation, puis présente une gamme d’outils et de ressources en ligne gratuits, notamment des banques terminologiques, des concordanciers bilingues, des outils pour comparer des variétés linguistiques, des outils de traduction automatique, le ChatGPT et des portails linguistiques. Dans chaque cas, les outils et les ressources présentés ont une saveur typiquement canadienne pour aider les traductrices et traducteurs à localiser des textes vers l’anglais canadien et le français canadien. Pour chaque outil ou ressource, vous trouverez un petit exercice pratique pour vous aider à démarrer. Alors, vous êtes prêts?
Bowker, L. (2023) « Vous traduisez pour le Canada? v2» eCampus Ontario Bibliothèque Ouverte.
Free Open Educational Resources (OER): eBooks on game-based learning
Beaulieu, E., M. Boutet, L. Bowker, T. Burelli, J. Carnegie, A. Lillo, D. MacDonald, C. Montpetit and S. Ousko (2020). "Using Game-Based Learning Online : A Cookbook of Recipes", eCampus Ontario Open Library
Beaulieu, E., M. Boutet, L. Bowker, T. Burelli, J. Carnegie, A. Lillo, D. MacDonald, C. Montpetit and S. Ousko (2020). "Enseigner en ligne par le jeu – Un livre de recettes”, eCampus Ontario Open Library
Game-based learning is a teaching approach that uses different forms of games, and the strategies or mechanics associated with them, for educational purposes. It advocates a student-centred approach that allows learners to explore, fail and take up challenges in a safe environment. Game-based learning also supports students in autonomously exploring situations created by their professor. Additionally, games are likely to reinforce the students’ commitment to the learning process. In an educational context, these characteristics and qualities can greatly enhance student engagement, motivation and learning. This collection of recipes has been created to present game-based strategies to make online learning more stimulating and engaging for students. In this cookbook, an interdisciplinary panel of experts offers recipes for integrating different types of game-based learning activities in the context of remote teaching. An overview of game-based learning strategies will be provided, including trivia games, escape games, co-operative games, crossword puzzles, and more.
HINT for fun and games with HeyGen: Think content hallucination.
Rewatch the videos and take note of the English content between 8 seconds and 11 seconds in the first video. Then compare it to the French content at the same point in the second video (between 8s and 11s). The content in the French video is delivered more quickly than it is in the English original, and so the software has added some extra content that was not in the original video... possibly to try to keep things on track with the timing? Yikes! Now imagine if it had chosen to add something less flattering...