As noted by this preschool teacher in New Jersey, the number of US families who speak languages other than English has dramatically increased in recent years. According to US Census Bureau data for 2018–2022, 21.7% of US residents speak a language other than English at home (United States Census Bureau 2022). While this has many societal implications, it is crucial for schools to consider as they aim to create positive, reciprocal relationships with all families. Studies have shown that families whose home language is not English experience obstacles to active participation (Subramaniam 2011).

A critical way to strengthen family-school partnerships is through communication. To be effective, communication should come in many forms and happen regularly. The importance of providing flyers, letters, announcements, and school or program website information in multiple languages is well documented (Li et al. 2023; Piller, Bruzon, & Torsh et al. 2023). However, many administrators and educators are not adequately prepared to communicate with families who speak a language other than their own, due to a lack of time, resources, and guidance (e.g., García, & Wei, 2014). Therefore, they may be in search of new or additional avenues to help facilitate family-school communication.

We (the authors) have extensive experience working with ethnically and linguistically diverse school districts and have observed that the increasing linguistic diversity in schools highlights the need for more frequent, consistent, and individualized communication in multiple languages to foster a more inclusive learning community. Various artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools are currently available, including OpenAI ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. In this article, we focus on ChatGPT and its capabilities for translation into multiple languages. We outline steps for getting started with ChatGPT and crafting prompts for translating information for families. Finally, we describe some limitations that educators should be aware of when using AI-powered tools for translation.

ChatGPT: What Is It, and What Are Its Capabilities?

Educators may already be familiar with using tools that tap into AI (such as Google Translate) to create materials in multiple languages. Newer generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, have some advantages over apps like Google Translate. For example, they have the ability to decipher more about context and can generate multiple automated revisions. ChatGPT is a large language model-based chatbot, which is a computer program that imitates human conversations using text, voice, or both. The term Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT) refers to “a language processing model trained on massive data to produce writing that resembles a person’s [language]” (Javaid et al. 2023, 2). “Massive data” is noteworthy: ChatGPT’s development has relied on using “billions of text samples” to train the system to generate responses (Trust, Whalen, & Mouza 2023).

Unlike apps like Google Translate, ChatGPT stores conversation history in a sidebar unless the user deletes it. If the user has additional prompts or questions about previous conversations, they can open the history and enter new prompts. ChatGPT remembers all previous requests. This function can be useful for situations in which users need to translate similar ideas or responses over time and in multiple languages without typing in the same prompts multiple times.

In addition, ChatGPT can handle a variety of sequential tasks, including performing multiple tasks either in a particular order or simultaneously based on user instructions. Users can either enter all prompts at once or enter one prompt, see the result, and then enter the second prompt, and so on. For example, a user could enter the prompt “Summarize Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, by Mo Willems.” After ChatGPT provides the summary, the user might then prompt it to “Change this summary into one paragraph at a third-grade reading level. Translate this summary into Spanish, Arabic, and French Creole.” ChatGPT can also execute step-by-step tasks, using the result of one action to inform and improve the next.

While ChatGPT’s translation capabilities have been found to work well in several languages, the degree of accuracy and appropriateness of these translations varies depending on the language used (Li, Bonk, & Kou 2023). For example, when we translated “Hey there! We’re going to take some cool pictures of all the kids!” from English into Arabic, the translation was closer to “Hello! We will take some sweet pictures of the children,” which has a slightly different nuance than the original message.

Using ChatGPT for Translation

ChatGPT is versatile and relatively easy to use. It also requires supports, practice, and intentionality. Guided by a specific purpose and careful evaluation, educatorscan consider using ChatGPT, or a similar AI-powered tool, to create communication that is accessible to all families.

Getting Started

           To use ChatGPT through Open AI, users can go to chat.openai.com and sign in if they have an existing account. If not, they can select the sign-up option to open a free account. After a user signs in, they will see a box where questions or prompts can be entered. ChatGPT will generate answers in a separate box. In addition to the free platform, ChatGPT provides the paid versions Plus, Team, and Enterprise that allow access to higher message limits, data, and other AI tools, such as an image generator. A user can choose from these different options; however, unlimited interactions and chat history are available in all free and paid versions.

Writing Prompts

Users need to provide ChatGPT with prompts, which are “the information, sentences, or questions that you enter into a [generative] AI tool” (Harvard University Information Technology 2023). These prompts greatly influence the quality of the output. They are important to consider because “after you enter a prompt, the AI model analyzes your input and generates a response based on the patterns it has learned through its training” (Harvard University Information Technology 2023). AI-powered tools produce more targeted results when the user provides clear and detailed prompts about what they want to achieve. When educators need to translate a document, they may find it difficult to craft prompts that are detailed enough to generate the desired results. They may need to revise and refine their prompts several times.

Here are a few examples of prompts:

• Translate “Please come to the parent-teacher conference on November 17 at 6:00 PM” into Spanish.
• Translate “Please come to the parent-teacher conference on November 17 at 6:00 PM” into Arabic, Bengali, French Creole, and Spanish.
• Translate this message into Gujarati. [Enter the message to be translated.]

The example below shows translation from English to French Creole. Multiple interactions or prompts may be needed before ChatGPT gives the desired results. This is one reason why sufficient educator supports, practice, and intentionality are key.

Example of a ChatGPT Translation

Here is an example of how an educator might use ChatGPT to translate a message from English into a specific home language (French Creole).

Prompt: Translate the message into French Creole.

Welcome to the AAA Academy! My name is Dr. ABC, and I will have the pleasure of teaching your child this year.

I have worked in the AAA Public Schools for 15 years. This is my ninth year as a Kindergarten teacher with AAA Public Schools. It is my belief that a child's success is based on a cooperative parent and teacher relationship. I look forward to working with you throughout the year. Kindergarten is a year of growing socially, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. Your involvement, interest, and enthusiasm will help make this a wonderful year of growth for you and your child.

Each day, please have your child bring 2 healthy and peanut/nut-free small snacks and a drink. You may choose to pack a lunch as well or it may be purchased from the cafeteria. Please place any lunch money in a small labeled envelope inside your child’s daily take-home folder. Kindly place any other notes for me in this folder as well. :) 

Thank you for entrusting me with your children. It is going to be a great year!

A close review is a crucial step. When possible, it is advisable to have humans who are proficient in the target languages review and edit the translations. When human translators are not available, educators can consider using other translation tools, such as Google Translate, to review the results generated by ChatGPT. In this case, the ChatGPT results (in French Creole) can be translated back into English, and the original English script can be compared to the one translated from French Creole. This process enables users to discover unexpected translations of words or expressions. Although it is not perfect, it is one method educators can use to evaluate the content an AI tool generates in light of their intended message and goals. Based on the results, educators can continue to refine or change their prompts to ChatGPT, if needed.

Limitations of Using ChatGPT for Translation

While ChatGPT can perform translation tasks in multiple languages, perspectives, and styles quickly, it should be considered a starting point. Educators need to engage in intentional thinking and decision making around family communications generated by AI. There are several reasons for this.

First, the results may not always be accurate or natural sounding. Currently, ChatGPT is limited in its ability to fully understand the depth of cultural contexts and societal nuances (Rane 2023) as well as idiomatic expressions. For instance, phrases like “This will be an emotional time for parents” or “It would break my heart” may be translated using words that are either too dramatic compared to the original intent or sound awkward when taken out of context. This issue is especially pronounced with languages that are less commonly used, which means that there are fewer texts available for ChatGPT to reference. Therefore, a close review, as noted earlier, is advisable.

Second, language and character-related issues can affect the quality of ChatGPT translations. For example, different languages represent dates and times in different ways. Some languages such as French and French Creole do not use “a.m.” and “p.m.” Yet ChatGPT translates the time into French Creole as “6 p.m.” even though the correct translation is “6 nan aswe.” In addition, numbers are not universal across all languages, and do not look the same in every language. As an example, in Bengali, the number 8 looks like the number 4. If a date is listed as November 18, ChatGPT will translate the date as “18 নভেম্বর.” In Bengali, this date would be interpreted as “November 14.” Again, a close review, as noted earlier, is preferable to ensure accuracy.

Third, ChatGPT may reproduce disinformation, biases, and harmful information found online or from sources that are not credible (Heaven 2023). For example, ChatGPT could omit information to increase readability, perceiving that the information is redundant. Translated text could involve omitted concepts, added concepts, untranslated or mistranslated concepts, substituted concepts (Rusadi & Setiajid 2023), propaganda, and/or censored terms (Urman & Makhortykh 2023). A failure to acknowledge or understand this limitation of the tools might pose a danger of relying on incomplete, incorrect, and biased content.

Last, due to the “learning optimization gap,” defined as “learners’ inability to fully leverage ChatGPT’s technical affordances” (Li, Bonk, & Kou 2023, 15), teachers may have difficulty operating ChatGPT effectively and getting it to produce optimal translations. In fact, Delello et al. (2024) found that the majority of educators who participated in their study reported no to slight familiarity with AI. Additionally, 55 percent of the educators reported no familiarity with ChatGPT specifically. While educators indicated using ChatGPT for various troubleshooting tasks, they were not familiar with how to use ChatGPT more effectively, such as to create effective prompts. As such, schools and programs should consider offering professional development on this topic. Professional development should provide guidance not only on technical operations, but also on how to create prompts and how to evaluate the results with concrete examples.

In addition, educators should be aware of privacy issues. ChatGPT interactions may be stored for product improvement and analysis purposes, because OpenAI may tap user data to train its large language models. While employees may not directly review individual data, AI trainers are permitted to use ChatGPT conversations for model training purposes (OpenAI., n.d.). Therefore, educators should avoid including any confidential or personal data about children and families when working with ChatGPT (Wu, Duan, & Ni 2024). (Further details are available from OpenAI’s “Privacy Policy” at openai.com/policies/privacy-policy.)

As educators continue another school year, there are many decisions to make. One is how they will establish and maintain relationships with families. As they work toward this goal, they can intentionally consider how the use of tools such as ChatGPT can help them provide effective school-to-home communication in families’ home languages.

Photograph: © Getty Images
Copyright © 2024 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at NAEYC.org/resources/permissions.

References

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