ATA Newsbriefs

People who are not proficient in English could be shut out of taking the U.S. citizenship exam under a new House Republican proposal.

Florida Representative Randy Fine plans to introduce a bill that would mandate the citizenship

exam be taken entirely in English. The proposal comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March naming English as the country’s official language—the first time in its history that the U.S. has done so.

There are several components to the U.S. citizenship exam. While most are English-only, the civics portion—in which the applicant is asked 10 out of 100 possible questions on U.S. history and government—can currently be taken in other languages, provided that certain criteria are met. Fine’s bill would eliminate those exceptions.

“The fact that U.S. citizenship applicants can currently use an interpreter to take the naturalization exam undermines the idea of assimilation into American culture,” Fine said. “If you want to live in an English-speaking country, you should be able to speak English, period.”

Current law states that people aged 50 or older who have lived in the U.S. as a permanent resident for at least 20 years are allowed to take the civics portion in another language. People aged 55 or older who have been a U.S. permanent resident for at least 15 years have the same exemption. Both groups are required to bring an interpreter fluent in English and their native language to the exam.

“My bill will require all applicants to take the naturalization exam exclusively in English because, both metaphorically and literally, everyone who enters our country with the intent of staying should speak our language,” Fine said.

Fox News (9/13/25) By Elizabeth Elkind

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The U.S. Department of Education has halted some of the 107 grants from the only federal program specifically created to help teachers improve techniques for working with English learners.

Those grantees received non-continuation letters from the Department of Education on September 23 and were given seven calendar days to file an appeal. As of September 25, Department of Education officials had not clarified precisely how many National Professional Development Program (NPD) grantees received non-continuation letters.

The NPD grant program was designed to help fund training programs that work with both pre- and in-service teachers across the country. The program is part of Title III funding that covers supplemental support for English learners’ education. Examples of NPD grant work include helping teachers work with families of English learners in Texas and developing grow-your-own bilingual teacher programs in Massachusetts.

“The department re-awarded the majority of NPD program grants and non-continued those that do not align with the administration’s priorities,” said Madi Biedermann, the deputy assistant secretary for communications for the Department of Education. “The non-continued grant funds are being reinvested into high-quality NPD programs that better serve students.”

The NPD grants are among scores of education grants the Trump administration has recently halted. Teachers across the country report lacking sufficient professional development to support the growing population of English learners enrolling in K-12 schools.

All the grantees who received non-continuation letters said they plan to appeal. They include Tina Cheuk, an NPD grantee and associate professor of elementary science education at California Polytechnic State University. “I just want the Department of Education to follow the law. NPD grants are part of Title III and congressionally mandated,” Cheuk said.

With the newly announced funding cuts, grantees must end much of the work already underway this school year. “The harm is really directly to students and young people who want to be teachers. Now the barriers are even higher,” Cheuk said.

Education Week (9/25/25) By Ileana Najarro

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Middlebury College President Ian Baucom and the institution’s senior leadership announced the closure of most residential and select online graduate programs at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), a move set to take effect by June 2027.

The discontinuation will impact all residential graduate programs, including translation, interpreting, conference interpreting, and translation and localization management.

Baucom delivered what he called “difficult news” following a meeting of the board of trustees, clarifying that the decision was a financial one and not a reflection of the program’s quality. For over 15 years, MIIS has grappled with fluctuating enrollments, a situation that worsened significantly after the pandemic, leading to “significant deficits for the last several years,” Baucom said.

According to the announcement, a four-year plan initiated in spring 2024 to combat the financial downturn failed to meet its targets, leaving no other viable option. As a result, MIIS will stop accepting applications for most two-year degree candidates in the fall of 2025.

To ensure a smooth transition, Middlebury College has pledged its full support to current students, promising that they will have the resources to complete their degrees by the 2027 deadline. This includes maintaining all on-campus resources, such as career services and financial aid, for the duration of their studies. Academic records will be maintained indefinitely, and students on visas will receive support to ensure their SEVIS status remains intact.

In addition to students, faculty and staff at MIIS will receive a phased-out support plan with guaranteed employment through the end of 2025. The first wave of position eliminations is scheduled for January 16, 2026.

“This decision does not reflect a retreat from our global mission,” Baucom said. “Whatever our decision is on MIIS, we must and will continue to be a Middlebury for the world.”

Slator (9/2/25) By Rocío Txabarriaga

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The executives behind big generative artificial intelligence (AI) companies are quick to claim their products will displace huge numbers of workers. In this environment, it’s easy to see research about AI-vulnerable jobs and start to panic. But dig a little deeper and there’s less need for translators, interpreters, historians, and others to worry about whether AI will replace them—unless human employers, enraptured by AI’s hype, decide so.

“I think it is useful for people to focus on the tasks as opposed to jobs,” said Darrell West, a senior fellow in the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. “There may not be that many whole jobs that get eliminated. There certainly are going to be a lot of tasks that are going to be eliminated.”

This exact point was made by Microsoft researchers when they issued a report in July with a list of jobs with tasks that most and least overlapped with tasks that could be done by generative AI.

“It is tempting to conclude that occupations that have high overlap with activities AI performs will be automated and thus experience job or wage loss… This would be a mistake, as our data do not include the downstream business impacts of new technology, which are very hard to predict and often counterintuitive,” the authors of the study wrote.

It’s also important to keep in mind that jobs like translation, interpreting, and research involve more than just the tasks with which AI may be able to assist.

Andy Benzo, a legal translator and president-elect of the American Translators Association, says translators do more than just transcribe and convert documents. Medical translators and interpreters, for example, help people communicate with doctors and nurses to ensure they’re getting proper care. These are literal life-and-death situations. Likewise, financial transactions that move from one language to another need to be clear, or else someone’s money or livelihood may be at stake.

Professional translators and interpreters are generally experts not only in language, but in their specific field, Benzo said. “You pay us for what we know. We say that what we do is accurate.”

Translation tools powered by generative AI are getting increasingly skilled at helping someone communicate in a language they don’t understand. But professional translators and interpreters specialize in getting things exactly right. You don’t want a translation that makes a good guess—which is really all you get from AI—when your money or your life is on the line. You want a translation that understands the nuances that vary between the languages. And you want someone who’ll be accountable if it’s wrong.

“If AI makes a mistake, who’s going to be responsible for that?” Benzo asked.

Language is also not static. While the AI industry is fast-moving, language changes even more quickly. Every day, someone somewhere finds a new way to phrase an idea. The Cambridge Dictionary, for example, just added words like “skibidi” and “broligarchy,” which an AI with an outdated training dataset may not be able to understand. But a human, properly trained, can keep up with those subtle adaptations.

“Language evolves all the time,” Benzo said. “Language belongs to the people. Nobody is the boss of language. The only one who can perceive the nuances of a language is a human.”

Nobody knows what AI’s effect will be on the economy even a few years from now. The capabilities of these tools, and our understanding of what they can and can’t do, is constantly changing. But the technology’s effect on jobs won’t necessarily happen because of what it can do. It’ll happen because of what business leaders and executives think it can do.

“Corporate leaders may end up laying off too many people because of their optimism about AI, and they may end up discovering that there’s an important element that’s missing,” West said. “The human judgment aspect is going to be critical.”

CNET (9/1/25) By Jon Reed

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Grappling with the subtleties of Shakespeare’s poetry and prose has proved a challenge for many a theater company, but a novel linguistic challenge has been added into the mix in a new production of Romeo and Juliet.

A Welsh-English bilingual version of the tragedy, called Romeo a Juliet, is about to tour, ending at Shakespeare’s Globe in London—believed to be the first time Cymraeg (the Welsh language) will have been heard at the venue.

Aptly, the feuding families at the center of the drama are divided in this retelling by language, with the Capulets speaking English and the Montagues Cymraeg. It means the way the lovers communicate and grow to understand each other is all the more charged.

“It’s so special to see a bilingual show celebrating this beautiful Celtic language. I hope everybody finds something to enjoy in it,” said Isabella Browne, who plays Juliet.

Steffan Donnelly, the director, said the production marks a significant milestone for the Welsh language, coming at a time when there is an increased interest in Welsh-English bilingual productions.

“I think at the moment in the U.K. we’re figuring out who we are as the world is crumbling all around us,” Donnelly said. “Looking at an Indigenous language like Welsh is a portal to allow people to unpick a bit more about where we are as a nation. If we want the Welsh language to survive, we have to welcome people to the language.”

The Guardian (9/25/25) By Steven Morris

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