The Teacher's Requests in a Third-Grade Classroom
You interpret for a third-grade Deaf student in a general-education classroom. The IEP calls for ASL with visual supports. The student has language delays and often copies peers. During math, the teacher says to you, not the student, "Tell him to sit down and stop tapping." Later she asks you to check his worksheet and mark the wrong answers so she can enter grades, and to keep him quiet during the assembly because "the other kids need to hear." You are employed by the district, not by the family.
1. How do you handle "Tell him to sit down and stop tapping"?
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You can interpret the direction, but you should not become the source of it. The message belongs to the teacher, so route it back: "I'll interpret what you say to him-tell me and I'll sign it." Then interpret the teacher's words as hers, not as your own classroom management.
Reasoning: if you deliver the correction yourself, the student experiences you as an authority figure and begins to filter teacher messages through you. That damages the interpreting role and makes you a disciplinarian the teacher can delegate to. It also hides from the teacher whether her own instruction is clear to the student.
If the tapping is a sensory or regulation issue, that is an IEP-team question, not an interpreter decision. Note it and raise it through the appropriate channel, but do not diagnose.
2. The teacher asks you to grade the worksheet. What do you say, and why?
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Decline the grading and offer the access-appropriate alternative: "I can't grade his work-that's your role and it would compromise my neutrality. I can make sure he understands the directions and can report what I observed about his access to the task."
Reasoning: grading is an evaluation of the student's knowledge. If the interpreter marks answers, the grade reflects the interpreter's judgment and possibly the interpreter's language choices, not the student's learning. It also puts you in a position where the student may see you as an evaluator and become less willing to signal confusion.
Reporting observations is different from grading: "He asked for three repeats on the word problems" is access information the teacher can use; a red X on item 4 is not.
3. The teacher wants the student kept quiet during the assembly. How do you respond, and what do you do afterward?
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The request is a request to suppress the student's communication, which conflicts with your role. Respond neutrally: "I can't keep him quiet-my job is to interpret for him. If his participation is a concern, that's something for you and the IEP team to plan." Then interpret the assembly content for him as usual.
Reasoning: "the other kids need to hear" frames the Deaf student's communication as a disruption. An interpreter who enforces silence has stopped being an interpreter and become a classroom manager, and the student loses access to both the assembly and the right to respond.
Afterward, document the request and report it through your district supervisor or the IEP case manager. This is a pattern, not a one-off: three requests in one day, all directed at you rather than the student. That pattern belongs in a written note and, if it continues, in an IEP team conversation about the interpreter's role.