By Leah Belsky, Chief Revenue Officer
For much of the world, access to educational opportunities is often limited to only those who speak English. As emerging technologies create new skills requirements and the education and work landscape becomes more globalized, language barriers create impediments to collaboration, productivity, and economic opportunity.
AI has now allowed us to bridge the language and learning divide for millions around the world. We are excited to announce access to over 4,000 AI translated courses in seven of the world’s most widely spoken languages for business, government, and campus customers and their learners.
Now native speakers of Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese (Brazil), French, German, Bahasa Indonesia, and Thai gain unparalleled access to the world’s best educators, empowering them with skills to thrive in a digital and AI-first world. The newly translated courses include translations that cover lecture video subtitles, course readings, quizzes, assessments, assignments, instructions, discussion prompts, course descriptions, and syllabi.
With in-demand skills training now available in local languages, businesses can boost employee engagement and productivity and governments can help job seekers unlock new career opportunities in the digital economy. Data science teams in Indonesia can Create Machine Learning Models with Microsoft Azure in Bahasa Indonesia while their regional counterparts in Europe take the same course in German and French. Unemployed Brazilians in the Espiritu Santo workforce development program can take Introduction to Project Management from IBM in Brazilian Portuguese.
Higher education institutions can address enrollment and curriculum gaps by integrating online courses from leading global experts in their local language, including in key areas such as STEM and digital skills. University students in the UAE can now take Cloud Computing Foundations from Duke University in Arabic while students in Mexico can learn Introduction to Machine Learning from Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Spanish.
With the toggle experience, learners have the option to practice skills in their local language or use subtitles for English courses to advance their English language proficiency in specific workplace skills.
Learners can now access top courses in their local language including:
- Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) from University of Michigan
- Write Professional Emails in English from The Georgia Institute of Technology
- Python Data Structures from University of Michigan
- Excel Skills for Business Essentials from Macquarie University
There are currently over 33.1 million registered learners on Coursera based in countries that speak one of the seven translated languages as their official language. In the coming months, we plan to expand access to several additional languages.
We are excited to share additional improvements that will transform the learner experience:
- Clips on Program Home and Skill Pages: Bite-sized content recommendations have been added to program home and skill pages to help kickstart learning.
- Clips in Collections: Add bite-sized content to collections to help support your learning objectives. Directs learners to the most relevant Clips, which expand to deeper learning and skill development.
- Skill Progress Over Time: Visualize skill progress for your learner population all in one place. View skill progress in aggregate for learners from quarter to quarter, with detailed information on how individual learners are advancing in a specific skill.
To see the full list of translated Coursera courses currently available, click here.
For more information on how to leverage this new functionality to achieve your organization’s learning goals, visit our Help Center articles or reach out to your Coursera account manager.