Spanish Professor Nathalie Kasselis worked with Mount Stuart Elementary to have 20 students from her Spanish Translation course translate at parent-teacher conferences on Nov. 19 and Nov. 20.

In the previous year, one of Kasselis’ students from her Spanish translation course translated for Jason Eng and his class of fifth graders at Mount Stuart. Her student told her about the experience, which gave her the idea for this year’s collaboration.

The Central student translators that came to participate ended up helping about 13 families.

Kasselis believed that students in the translation course needed to get hands-on experience.

“I felt that they needed this practical side of things, where they were put in a situation where they just had to interpret,” Kasselis said.

Kasselis worked with Dan Patton, the principal at Mount Stuart, and Mary Langley, the school district’s migrant coordinator, to set up this opportunity.

Before the conferences, Langley spoke to the student translators and gave them some tips.

Kasselis said it was good for the students to hear from other professionals in the field, such as Langley.

Kasselis said that the fact that her students will be in contact with the community is valuable and a way to create a bridge between Central and the Ellensburg community.

According to Kasselis, some of her students want to be teachers, and this was their first experience at both parent-teacher conferences and translating.

Alexa Olague, senior public relations and Spanish major, said they’re lucky that they got to go out into the schools and do this collaboration to help people in the community.

There aren’t many resources at the school district to hire translators, so this collaboration helped both the elementary school and Central’s students.

Arnoldo Garcia, junior communications major, said he would encourage other individuals who can speak another language to go out and volunteer to translate for those who need it.

Garcia said that it’s really good for the student to have a relationship with the community.

Julia Leyva, senior Spanish teaching major, said that not only is this a great idea, but it will be a very useful experience for her since she is planning to teach language.

Leyva said that, as a teacher, when there are parent-teacher conferences, she’ll have the skill to translate and that this opportunity is something she’ll take with her beyond college.

Kasselis’ class, spanish translation, is an introductory course to translating in Spanish. Most of the students are seniors completing a major or minor in Spanish.

Kasselis said that people think that to translate, you just have to know both languages, but translation is very complex. It requires you have a lot of knowledge in not just languages, but other areas as well. Translators have to know the culture of both languages.

Olague said translation is so complex that students can’t cover everything in one quarter.

According to Olague, a lot of students from the fall course are planning to take the spring course, which is a continuation of what they learned the previous fall.

The fall course is only scratching the surface, Olague said.