Google Translate: A teacher's worst nightmare

I don't think I'm alone when I say that I absolutely hate receiving papers to "correct" for students of all ages alike that have been run through Google Translate.

Just now I was working with somebody and he looked at me and literally questioned out loud, "Oh, we can't say that? Why not?"
To his question, I want to answer, "well, why in the first place?" But I know perfectly why they believe what is on the paper in front of them -- for whatever reason, maybe because Google is so good at giving us the search results we want, people trust it. They expect what they have written to be correct and to actually mean something, because well,... it's Google, ya know?

I've been trying to think about what I can do to keep my students from using these sorts of tools and encouraging them instead to find the words in English to express their ideas. I usually stop all together with whatever document I've been given in it's (what I like to call) "traduced" form. "Traduce" is a franglish mash-up of translate and traduire, and that is exactly what Google Translate gives us. It's not English and it's not French. Once the document is out of the picture, I look at the student and simply ask them what they would like to say. Then we start over, word by word, with grammar and vocabulary that are simply within their reach.

French is the kind of language that feels the need to take up space. It's wordy with long, looping sentences. Somebody once told me that French was like a painting with long brush strokes, whereas English was like a movie with action, surprise, and suspense in doses. You see that when you look at French and English on paper. The same idea expressed in French that took up a whole page may only take up half a page when written in English. This makes people feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel like they haven't written enough and that they must have missed something. You can't change perspective in a day so I ask them to read, re-read, and if they feel like there is something missing we can always revise. True to form, everything is there, and then I get a look of shock and amazement like, "well that wasn't really hard at all, now."

Reading is another area that can be problematic. It is a great way to learn new vocabulary words and to see expressions used in context, just as long as all of the new words and expressions are detracting from the story because that's where you get bored. In the same way that it is OK for a translation to only take up half a page, it is also okay for a reader to not run to the dictionary every five minutes to look up words that they don't know in the text. I say if you have to go to the dictionary that often, then what you are reading is too hard. If you have to go to Google Translate, then the student may be over-thinking what they need to write and looking to "take up space".

Translators and dictionaries can be great tools, but they have to stay just that: tools. They aren't crutches, so breaking the habit of using them to confirm every last detail from the beginning is a great idea. That way, the people you are working with will be able to think on their own and try to find their own meaning in the words. What does it look like? What does it sound like? How is it written, and finally, can I use it on my own?

How do you handle learning tools in your classroom? What do you think about online translators?