Career Challenge and Solutions Podcast

The speaker, Lanie Williams, discusses challenges faced by teachers in communicating with guardians and suggests solutions. Some barriers to communication include work demands, lack of time, cultural differences, language proficiency, negative experiences, and access to technology. The main focus is on the language barrier, and one solution is using an interpreter during face-to-face communication. Another solution is using school communication apps or software that offer translation, such as Blooms. Other tools mentioned are Talking Points, Teacher, Parent Square, Remind, and Snap Connect. Welcome, everybody. My name is Lanie Williams, and I'm currently getting my master's in elementary education. In this podcast, I will be talking about challenges and possible solutions within my future career. There has and will always be challenges within the teaching profession. One challenge that many teachers face is the aspect of communicating with guardians. While students are at school, they are learning from the teachers around them. But it is also necessary for students to get support outside of the classroom. This ensures that students grow their knowledge to the fullest capacity. Students are also more likely to succeed when they are obtaining help outside of the classroom. There are many different barriers between communication of teachers and guardians. Some of these barriers include the guardians' work demand and the lack of time throughout school hours to communicate with the teachers. Cultural differences between guardians and the teachers. The English language proficiency of guardians. Previous negative teacher or school experiences that students or guardians might have had. And the guardians' access to different types of technology. The main challenge that I'll be focusing on today is the aspect of teachers and guardians not being able to communicate due to a language barrier. One easier solution would be to have an interpreter while face-to-face communication is occurring. While the state might provide an interpreter in these instances, it is important for teachers to also communicate with parents, not face-to-face. One solution to this problem would be to use a school communication app or software that allows for translation. This will allow for these guardians to communicate with teachers the same as others in the classroom. Blooms is an extraordinary software that would act as a solution to these problems with communication. Blooms uses automatic one-click or translation technology to automatically translate your message into the recipient's preferred language. Users can choose from a list of 133 different languages that are currently supported by this technology. Other technology tools that can aid in the translation of messages between teachers and guardians are Talking Points, Teacher, the Parent Square, Remind, and Snap Connect, which was formerly known as SchoolCNXT. Thank you all for listening. I hope you have learned something through this podcast and used some of these resources within your communication with guardians.