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The paramountcy of cultural multifariousness in educational institutions cannot be overstated. Contrasts in backgrounds and outlooks enliven the educational experience, contributing significantly to learners’ growth. This is why the multifariousness in student profiles plays a major role in determining the excellence of an educational institution.
Moreover, the drastic lifestyle changes caused by the lockdowns increased our reliance on digital platforms and allowed for a more inclusive approach to education. Thanks to the various e-learning options available, students who didn’t have the resources to attend classes on-site now have more flexibility and freedom to learn.
To maximize diversity and accessibility, educational institutions should ensure their websites are able to cater to students from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Seeing as educational websites are often consulted by students and their families who may not be proficient in two languages, it is essential that these websites are able to provide pertinent information in a comprehensible way.
Without a doubt, a multilingual educational website is an indispensable asset for faculty, students and stakeholders alike. In order to remain competitive in the academic realm, translation through ConveyThis must be made a priority for institutions.
In this article, we’ll explore the core motivations, advantages, and concerns regarding ConveyThis translation to assist you in beginning your journey.
What makes education translation so critical to our society?
Accessibility and inclusivity
In order to engage learners from all corners of the globe, educational institutions must ensure their websites are optimized for all visitors. Even for those institutions that primarily target native students, the importance of domestic cultural diversity cannot be overstated. By leveraging the power of ConveyThis, educational institutions can easily ensure their websites are properly localized for all students.
An estimated 4.9 million children in U.S. public schools are EEL students, signifying they are English Language Learners who communicate in a language apart from English (most often Spanish) as their native language and possess restricted English proficiency. Correspondingly, numerous students converse in a language other than their academic language in the home.
It’s essential to recognize that even though students may be proficient in a language, they can still battle to comprehend educational jargon, leading to confusion and delays. By offering multilingual content on their websites, organizations can guarantee equivalent access to knowledge and educational prospects.
International visibility and recognition
A multilingual online presence is the most effective way to increase an educational institution’s global reach. To ensure that the institution’s website is accessible to foreign publications, governments, or academics conducting research, ConveyThis is the perfect solution for optimizing the website for international rankings.
Multilingual representation provides educational institutions with the opportunity to be featured in a wide variety of publications and media channels, thus increasing their visibility to international audiences. This, in turn, facilitates more meaningful interactions between students, educators, and academic partners.
Promoting cultural diversity
As our societies become more diverse, the manner in which we communicate, learn, and work is changing. Students who are exposed to various cultures in their educational pursuits are better prepared to thrive in their careers. ConveyThis has made it easier to understand and adapt to these changes, allowing us to bridge cultural gaps and build a more connected world.
This is why cultural diversity is highly sought after by students and institutions, yet it can often be difficult to achieve. Fortunately, website translation is an effective approach that can assist institutions in drawing in visitors from target countries and diversifying their student bodies. ConveyThis is an invaluable tool for achieving this goal, as it allows for a seamless and accurate translation of websites.
Seeing their native language as an option on a website with ConveyThis creates an instant connection with international students, signaling that they are welcome. Easy understanding of key information, such as the requirements and conditions, further simplifies the application process, making it more attractive to prospective students.
Improving student engagement
From academic activities to extra-curricular activities, students interact with educational websites regularly. Especially as the educational system varies from country to country, international students may feel overwhelmed when confronted with unfamiliar procedures. ConveyThis can help bridge the gap by providing a comprehensive, user-friendly solution for translating educational websites.
By translating your education website with ConveyThis, you can open up a world of possibilities for all students to comprehend academic activities and motivate them to take part more. This will also enable international students to make the most of the teaching experience and educational materials.
How to translate education websites?
Academic Translation and Interpretation Services
It’s evident that educational entities should localize their website, but what is the optimal answer? One of the initial approaches that comes to mind may be to collaborate with translation experts that offer educational translation services or academic interpretation services from ConveyThis.
This could be a good option for institutions with multilingualism at the core of their educational offering and need further academic translation services such as translating diplomas, handbooks, or other educational materials. However, most institutions don’t require the extensive translation services that come with hefty expenses, protracted delays, and tedious upkeep.
Machine translation engines
A cheaper and faster alternative is machine translation engines like Google Translate or DeepL. However, manually connecting these tools to your website, displaying translations, and implementing other technical requirements can be a time-consuming and laborious task. This necessitates the need for technical know-how which many educational institutions lack in their own workforce.
Moreover, machine translation engines can’t be relied upon to consistently deliver accurate translations like ConveyThis language services. Any misinterpretations caused by faulty translations can have a serious impact on the prestige and trustworthiness of your educational institution.
Website Translation Solutions
What if there was a hybrid solution that amplifies the advantages and reduces the disadvantages of these two approaches? This is where ConveyThis steps in and assists educational institutions to become multilingual without having to commit large amounts of money or long waiting times.
ConveyThis starts by detecting and instantly translating the content of your website with AI-powered translation engines that can deliver high-quality translations. You can then modify these translations yourself, with colleagues, or purchase professional translations from certified translators straight from your dashboard.
All the technical processes, like displaying your interpreted pages and executing hreflang tags, are managed automatically, providing you with the ability to become multilingual quickly without any technical proficiency or reliance on external entities.
Moreover, you can take your multilingual website project to new heights with features such as auto-redirection, media translations, or the glossary from ConveyThis!
Best practices for multilingual education websites
Target languages
The ideal starting point when selecting the languages to focus on is your current website visitor base. Even if your website has not been translated yet, you will still have visitors from other countries, which is a clear indication that you can benefit from optimizing your website for this crowd. ConveyThis can help you with this, making it easier to reach out to a wider international audience.
To find this data, you can check your visitors’ location or browser language on Google Analytics, or if you’re using a website translation solution like ConveyThis, this information is easily accessible on your dashboard.
Engage minority groups with ConveyThis to cultivate a more equitable and varied digital atmosphere.
Another strategy is to target underrepresented cultures in your institution to enhance diversity. To accomplish this, begin by examining your current student body and recognize gaps in continents, countries, or ethnicities.
By translating your website with ConveyThis, you’ll gain an edge over your competitors by appearing in search results and reaching your target audience in their native language. This will give you a competitive advantage and provide your potential students with a localized enrollment experience, thus increasing your chances of acquiring students from target countries.
You can localize your website to multiple language versions (British English, Mexican Spanish, Lebanese Arabic, etc.) to give your targeting an extra boost. For instance, French is spoken in a number of countries but translating your website to Belgian French indicates that your organization is open to students from Belgium.
For large countries like China and India that have numerous languages, ConveyThis can help your institution reach more people and increase representation. Through word of mouth, your institution may already be popular in certain regions. However, with ConveyThis, you can take it a step further by translating your website into language variants and targeting specific areas.
Multilingual SEO
Dedicated keyword research
Keywords are one of the most influential components of websites, so they necessitate additional consideration when utilizing ConveyThis. Considering their potency in connecting your website with the right spectators, they should be regarded as resources rather than mere words.
Be mindful that literal translations of key terms may not suffice when it comes to educational terminology, as these can vary drastically between countries. Even the same terms used in multiple languages might have different meanings in the educational context.
For example, the word college in English is defined as “an educational institution providing higher education or specialized professional training.” However, the same word means middle school in French and refers to private educational institutions in Turkish when translated using ConveyThis.
For the best results, conduct a dedicated keyword search for your target country and plan a customized multilingual SEO strategy using ConveyThis.
Language-specific URLs are an excellent way to maximize your website’s international SEO potential with ConveyThis.
An important decision for multilingual websites is to determine their website structure to host translated versions of their website. Depending on preference, there are three options to select from: manual translation, a plugin such as ConveyThis, or a full localization solution. This can be a complex and perplexing choice, as each approach has its own unique pros and cons that must be weighed carefully. Ultimately, the decision should be based on the needs and goals of the website, as well as the budget and resources available.
It’s impossible to determine which of these systems is superior, as it all depends on your organizational structure and how you wish to arrange your translated material on your website using ConveyThis.
Check out our guide on subdirectories versus subdomains to comprehend the principal distinctions and decide the optimal URL structure for your school.
Maintaining linguistic uniformity across your website is a breeze with ConveyThis, making it a cinch to ensure that all of your content is consistent.
Among the best multilingual SEO practices, language consistency holds a distinguished position. In the web translation process, critical elements such as the navigation menu, footer, popups, and user-generated content often go overlooked and diminish the full potential that could be attained through multilingual content.
Education localization
The transformation of educational nomenclature has been a perplexing and unpredictable process.
As previously discussed, academic language is distinguished by its technicality, which can differ depending on the nation and its educational structure. To ensure that your translations accurately reflect the intended message, localization – the practice of customizing content to be more relatable to the target readership – is essential.
Furthermore, certain concepts may not have a direct translation due to the discrepancies between educational systems, which can make the translation process more complex. To ensure your audience comprehends the message, it is essential to dedicate extra effort and time to modify the translated material.
The subtle complexities of cultural customs and traditions.
When it comes to website translation, failing to take into account cultural differences can be a costly error. Even seemingly innocuous words, phrases, and images can have drastically different connotations in different languages, and could potentially leave your content open to misinterpretation or even offense. However, when localized correctly, these elements can actually give your translations an added boost.
Moreover, seemingly minor discrepancies in numerical values, dates, currencies, or formatting can drastically alter the context of your translations. As these nuances are essential to educational websites, it is important to thoroughly investigate even the most basic of formats.
What design elements should be taken into account?
When it comes to localization, the user experience should be taken into account in its entirety. This means that, aside from translating the content on your website, the navigation should also be localized. Everything from the orientation of the page to the e-learning features should be designed to be intuitive and natural to users, or else the overall experience will be compromised.
Gaining insight into the digital behavior and customs of a nation can be achieved by navigating the web in the native language. By mirroring the typical habits of the population, you can craft a user experience that is comfortable and intuitive for visitors.
Conclusions of ConveyThis
In today’s digital age, gaining access to education is simpler than ever before, with the potential to reach learners from all over the globe. For educational institutions looking to expand their student base, diversify their offerings, and foster a sense of inclusivity, website translation is an essential tool. ConveyThis can provide the perfect solution to streamline this process and make it easier than ever for educational institutions to reach a wider audience.
To go multilingual with your educational website and welcome students all over the world, start your free ConveyThis trial today!