I appreciate what you're saying, but what we're finding is that it depends very heavily on the language in question (we're using two LPIC certified people for each language, BTW).
You can disagree, but if the reviewers recommend a bilingual translation in their own tongue, I'm going with it (since German is only one of five new languages)
Where reviewers don't recommend bilingual (which is almost all of the time, my guess only), we won't use it. There are very specific questions that LionBridge is asking Kara, and she's guiding the process quite carefully, so between all of this expertise, I think we'll be OK. In fact, I just saw another email from her right now pass me by.
I do expect that we'll find some issues with these translations when we are "done" (that happened with Japanese through no fault of the care taken). I have also worked out a way to keep our costs for any minor republications to a minimum if we need to fix problems that arise.
-sg
Torsten Scheck wrote:
Stacy Gildenston wrote:
From my several years in Teaching English as a Second Language (my grad degree, in part), I must comment here.
BIG YES ON BILINGUAL, as it seems we're figuring out. *) We're not trying to hurt people with language, we're trying to help them. Else, why pay the money to do the work?
[...]
From my several years as a native not-English speaker in the IT domain, I must disagree here. ;-) Using localized commands, functions or technical terms in an unix environment will cause more confusion than it helps. Microsoft's approach to localize Excel functions in Germany was a disaster.
Allowing to read the item body in German is very helpful, as many candidates have problems with some adverbs or uncommon expressions which changes the meaning of a sentence. But still most German candidates prefer English exams, as they are afraid of translated technical terms which they won't understand. Therefore it is essential that candidates can switch from English to German and vice versa during the exam. (I hope this is implemented, as 3 years ago VUE said it would be possible.)
But extending our FITB parser (our word list) to understand possible synonyms and several languages will result in a lot of trouble. Make the FITB unambiguous and ask only for a term which is explicitly mentioned in the exam objectives, like commands, paths, or keys! If you need to ask for a normal word like e-mail, use a Multiple Choice item!
At the last paper exam 15 items were reported to be ambiguous, bad, or wrong. We should make our item writing guidelines stricter anyway. So, explicitly forbidding prose in FITB is a minor issue for me and helps the candidates to narrow down the possible answers, without having them think about localized synonyms, which they don't use in their job.
Torsten
-- Stacy Gildenston Director of Certification Linux Professional Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 603.430-9398 office 603.498-2329 cell 603.433-7590 fax
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