The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2018 - 31

CERTIFICATION FORUM

BY MICHÈLE HANSEN

The Care and Feeding of Graders

Y

ou can find a lot of information
about ATA's Certification Program
on the website and in past articles
of The ATA Chronicle, but not much about
the people who make it work. In this
month's column we'll take a look at the
human side of certification grading.

WHO MANAGES ATA'S
CERTIFICATION PROGRAM?
Caron Mason manages the program at
ATA Headquarters. She answers your
calls and emails, mails exam packets
to sittings, sends completed exams
to graders, and processes the results.
David Stephenson is chair of ATA's
Certification Committee. He manages the
approximately 130 graders working in
the 30 language pairs and directions for
which ATA currently offers certification
exams, and reports directly to the Board
of Directors. He is assisted by two deputy
chairs: Larry Bogoslaw, who doubles as
the grader trainer, and Michèle Hansen,
who also serves as the secretary of
the Certification Committee. They're
joined by the rest of the Certification
Committee, composed of up to 12
experienced graders, which helps
guide the program's development and
coordinate exam-related decisions.

WHO GRADES THE EXAM? ARE
THEY ALL TEACHERS?
ATA certification graders are your
colleagues. They're all practicing
translators with years of experience.
Some teach, while others do not.

DO GRADERS RECEIVE ANY SPECIFIC
TRAINING ON HOW TO MARK
CERTIFICATION EXAMS?
Absolutely! Live training is offered twice
every year, once in the spring and once in
the fall at ATA's Annual Conference. The
grader trainer prepares full- and half-day
sessions that keep graders' skills sharp
and consistent across the language groups.
The Certification Program also uses an
online platform where training materials
www.atanet.org

are available to those who can't make
the live sessions, and where the various
committees and language groups convene
to discuss issues. Most language groups
also schedule regular conference calls to
make sure everyone is up to date.

SOUNDS LIKE FUN. CAN I APPLY TO BE
A GRADER?
Yes, but you should know that turnover
is low so new positions don't open up
frequently. You can contact Caron Mason
at ATA Headquarters (caron@atanet.org),
who will pass your request along to the
appropriate language group. Graders
must have passed the exam and are
selected based on their exam score,
background, professional reputation
and experience, and demonstrated
commitment to the profession. This
last factor is taken into consideration
because, even though practice tests and
certification exams are remunerated,
graders perform a significant amount of
volunteer work for the program.

SO, GRADERS DON'T JUST GRADE?
In fact, the majority of the time graders
spend on certification is not spent on
grading exams! The process of passage
selection alone is long and involves
many steps. Every potential exam
passage is vetted by the members of the
language group and by its counterpart
group (a group working in the same
language pair but in the opposite
direction-for example, Spanish>English
and English>Spanish. Graders in a
group translate all the sample passages
individually and then discuss the
challenges and difficulty level with each
other. Passages are frequently discarded at
this point and the process begins again. If
the passage fulfills internal requirements,
it's sent to a separate taskforce for further
review. Graders also work with their
groups to come up with guidelines for
every passage to ensure that everyone
marks consistently.
Many graders also serve on a
subcommittee. These groups work on a

variety of activities related to certification,
such as helping those interested in
creating an exam for a new language
pair or direction, developing candidate
preparation materials for workshops,
reviewing and approving the use of
anonymized exam data by academic
researchers, or collaborating with ATA's
Public Relations Committee.
Finally, graders also work together
collaboratively under the grader trainer's
guidance to implement changes and
updates to the tools they use, such as
the Explanation of Error Categories,1
the Framework for Standardized Error
Marking,2 and the Flowchart for Error
Grading.3 Most recently, a major effort
went into updating the Into-English
Grading Standards in 2017.4 These
materials and others are reviewed
periodically to ensure that the process
is fair and consistent and that standards
are current. All of this work is done on a
volunteer basis by graders.
So, while myths will always circulate
about the certification exam, we hope that
this information provides some insight
into the hard-working people who make
the program possible.
NOTES
1
Explanation of Error Categories,
http://bit.ly/error-categories.
2

Framework for Standardized Error
Marking, http://bit.ly/ATA-error-marking.

3

Flowchart for Error Grading,
http://bit.ly/grading-flowchart.

4

Into-English Grading Standards,
http://bit.ly/into-English-grading.

Michèle Hansen has been an
ATA-certified French>English
translator and editor for over
20 years, specializing in
pharmaceutical and medical
documents and health-related
international development. A former administrator
of ATA's French Language Division, she is now
the deputy chair of the Certification Committee.
Contact: hansentranslations@mac.com.
American Translators Association

31
http://www.bit.ly/error-categories http://www.bit.ly/ATA-error-marking http://www.bit.ly/grading-flowchart http://www.bit.ly/into-English-grading http://www.atanet.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2018
