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Machine translation in higher education

I’m doing this conversation starter session next week about machine translation in higher education:

While chatbots like ChatGPT have dominated the conversation about generative AI, we have also seen remarkable advances in machine translation in recent years. This was a popular dissertation topic for DTCE students in 22/23 and this work highlighted issues raised by the ubiquitous use of tools like DeepL amongst PGT students in our department. If their use is increasingly widespread throughout a one year masters, do we need to adapt pedagogical practice to take account of this? Should programmes or the department provide guidelines on their use? I am interested in these questions as a programme director and researcher studying generative AI, but I am relatively new to the broader issues involved here. I would like to approach this session as a conversation starter about these issues, with a view to supporting more formal activity later in the year.

Here’s a video of me talking about this topic in German. I don’t speak German. But I was able to easily translate a video of me speaking English into German. There are logistical constraints on access to this translation but it’s easy to imagine teaching materials be translated into multiple languages for delivery.

Here are a few questions I wanted to raise:

  • How are international students currently utilizing machine translation tools to support their learning?
  • What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of relying on machine translation technologies?
  • How might biographical patterns of use differ? E.g a useful tool to mitigate culture shock vs growing use over the course of the year?
  • How could we adapt curricula and assessments to account for the influence of translation tools?
  • What kind of training could help students use translation aids effectively while still developing language skills?
  • Should the department develop any guidelines for students on the appropriate use of machine translation?
  • How can instructors leverage translation tools to aid teaching and learning for international students?
  • Are there particular forms of errors these systems are prone to which markers might be inclined to interpret negatively e.g. generating erroenous references to ‘our research’ for solo research projects.
  • Do we need new methods of evaluation to complement machine translation use?
  • Should we allow students to send virtual assistants to attend online classes and transcribe the sessions? If not, how will we stop them and explain why we are doing this?
  • What is the right balance between relying on translation aids and pushing language development?
  • How are other institutions adapting to the rise of machine translation among international students?
  • How can we empower students to use technology ethically and effectively for learning?

I would like to do a paper mapping out some of these issues and I’m keen to find people with expertise in the area who might want to work with me on it. If the issues I’m interested in have already been adequately mapped in the literature (which I suspect might be the case from searching a bit more thoroughly) then I would still like to do some work exploring what these developments mean for PGT programmes at MIE.

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