You may have noticed that a handful of types of worksheets on the subscribers side now include the option: Worksheet Instructions in Spanish. Yes, we are adding that option to all the Number Problems worksheets. After all, there is not a lot of English on the page anyway, so I thought it would be pretty easy to add Spanish as an option. Well, as with many things I propose, it turned out to be more complicated than I first thought, but we’re proceeding anyway.

I’m really excited to make Spanish instructions available. This will make the worksheets more useful to bi-lingual classes, add an interesting twist to math instruction for children who are learning Spanish, and of course, assist the math instruction of Spanish-speaking children.

The translation is being done for us by a 12 year old young lady. She’s bi-lingual, but doesn’t really appreciate that skill. Her father’s first language is Spanish, and I know how very articulate and well-spoken he is in English, so I’m confident that he’s just as articulate and well-spoken in Spanish, even if I don’t have the skill to verify that for myself. So the young lady is doing the translation, her parents are checking her work, and we’re getting an excellent translation.

I’m really excited about this opportunity from her perspective, too. She has the opportunity to contribute to a commercial web site (won’t that look good on a résumé?), using a skill she rather takes for granted (I’m hoping she’ll appreciate that skill more), and getting paid more than she’d earn for babysitting. As she’s homeschooled, her mother is giving her school credit for the work, too. It’s a great deal all the way around!

We’ll be adding the Spanish worksheet instructions option to each type of worksheet as we 1) receive the translation, and/or 2) get Scott’s help, as some of the additions will require more complicated programming changes than those he’s taught me thus far.

I’m excited to increase the usefulness of The Math Worksheet Site for a broader variety of people.

Thank you for your interest in the events “behind the scenes” at The Math Worksheet Site.

–Denise

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 11:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.