Multilingual International students face diverse challenges, including language acquisition, cultural differences, bias, and varying educational backgrounds. It's crucial to consider these factors and offer resources to foster resilience and understanding, avoiding barriers to success. In the studio setting, multilingual learners may have unique needs in accessing course content. The provided resources aim to assist teachers in promoting equity and improving access to learning for multilingual students in studio classrooms.

Quick Teaching Tips for ML Equity in Studio Courses

How-to Guides for Online Tools and Resources

Speech Tips to Help Our Multilingual English Language Learners

• Avoid Contractions
• For 1:1 conversations, encourage phone translators with microphones.
• Explain to the group:
  • Field Specific Vocabulary
  • Slang words
  • American Idioms
  • References to US popular culture: celebrities, movies, shows, trends or U.S. politicians, political or historical events
  • Acronyms
• Check in and ask questions. At the end of a class session, ask students what they will prepare for the next class or have them state their understanding of the project goals. Don’t ask “Do you understand?” – Instead, ask them to state their plan for next steps.

Use the White Board | Spell it out, Write it out

• Names (artist names, designers, writers, etc.)
• Places
• Art Movements & Eras
• Field-Specific Vocabulary Words
• Help organize expectations and lessen anxiety by writing the day’s plan or objectives on the whiteboard at the beginning of each class

Limit Lectures to 15 Minute Intervals

• Switch it up. Lecture in tiny bites of 15 minutes or less, then engage students in a discussion or small group feedback. It can be exhausting to concentrate on English.
• Engage Live Captioning (in English) when viewing videos and lectures.

Engage UDL Methods (Universal Design for Learning)

Use Oral, Written, and Visual forms of information delivery for course objectives, assignments, and critiques. Easy ways we incorporate UDL into our studio courses are listed below:

• Provide written directions for assignments as digital documents and encourage and demonstrate using Google Translate (Moodle, Google Classroom or Drive make this easy).
• Consider checking the readability of your written assignments and syllabus to keep language accessible: Resources like Flesch-Kincaid readability tools help ensure that your course information is clear, accessible, and appropriate for the learning level.
• Provide oral, written, & visual examples for assignments. The visual examples should demonstrate excellence and can be student work or professional work.
• Craft demonstrations are also examples of visual delivery. Safety and specific craft techniques demonstrated physically in class help all students.
• Use “paper chats” – During desk crits, use scrap paper to write out words, and notes, incorporate drawing, and engage phone translators in 1:1 convos.

Reduce Culture Shock

• Measurements: Few countries use the imperial measurement system. Including metric system measurements is a simple way to help international student comprehension.
• Community Engagement: Encourage students to work together outside of class and discuss support services (Learning Resources Center and International Student Services) – as well as involvement in the community through joining clubs, attending visiting lectures, and doing homework or working together in program hubs.
• Learning Expectations and Teaching Style: Explain the expectations of your course and assessment. If attendance and participation are keys to success in your assessment, do not assume all of your students understand this at the beginning of a course. Some students have had very different educational experiences and need explicit direction on expectations.
• Understanding & Patience: Give students time to organize their thoughts, reflect, and access language. Encourage questions. See the critique suggestions for more information.
• Be Flexible: Encourage students to speak in their most comfortable language if others also share the language during collaborative brainstorming discussions or casual conversations in class.
• Model Inclusion: Communicate your respect for the challenge of being an ML student and encourage the class community to learn from each other; expressing differing opinions and cultural perspectives will bring new insights into the creative process. Take each learner as they are, a unique multifaceted individual who brings their knowledge, skills, and cultural understandings to the learning community.

These online tools can help bridge language gaps and more effectively communicate with students. Click on the links to access detailed how-to guides for each tool.

Readability scoring tools

Readability scoring tools can help assess the complexity of written language, enabling you to adjust your course materials and assignments to meet the needs of multilingual learners. For example, editing your assignment directions to 18-19 year-old level for first year assignments can help all FY students. It's also helpful to check the complexity of your course syllabi for upper or graduate levels, including observing which specific words might be a reach in understanding.

Translation Apps for One-on-one Conversations

One-on-one meetings with faculty are invaluable for student growth and artistic development. Using translation apps to generate live captions can help break down barriers and foster clear communication, making sure multilingual students are receiving the support and feedback they need.

Presenting Slides with Live Captioning

Using live captioning in Google Slides or PowerPoint is an easy way to support multilingual students and reduce language barriers. Providing real-time written text alongside speech can help with student comprehension of your course content.