INTRODUCTION
In today’s interconnected world, organizations are expanding their global reach, connecting with employees and learners from diverse cultures and languages. As technology continues to bring the global population closer together, eLearning has emerged as a crucial tool for keeping training programs relevant and effective. However, the key to unlocking the full potential of eLearning on a global scale lies in eLearning localization, a process that adapts course content to specific cultures and languages. This comprehensive guide explores the benefits and best practices of eLearning localization, highlighting how it can transform your corporate training programs.
What is eLearning Localization?
eLearning localization conforms an eLearning course’s content to a specific place and its culture. Although we often use the terms eLearning translations and localizations interchangeably, they refer to two distinct concepts. Only part of the meaning of the word “translation” is shared with the Localization involves tailoring an eLearning course to suit the specific cultural nuances of the target audience, Instead of merely converting it from one language to another, the aim is to rephrase this text.
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eLearning localization offers numerous benefits for your organization, delivering outstanding results globally.
Five Ways eLearning Localization Can Enhance Your Global Training Initiatives
Localizing your training materials can provide significant advantages when aiming to train a global workforce or engage multilingual learners worldwide. These include boosting engagement, increasing employee retention, lowering costs, and achieving greater international success.
1. Expanding Your Audience Base
If you are an eLearning platform and still considering localizing for more global markets, here’s a compelling reason to take the leap: 90% of learners prefer to receive their training materials in their native language.
Localizing your eLearning content allows you to reach a wider audience, catering to individuals who prefer courses in their native language. Coursera’s report on enrollments from 2016 to 2021 highlights the top 10 countries with the highest participation in online learning: the US, India, Mexico, Brazil, China, Canada, Russia, the UK, Colombia, and Egypt.
2. Boosting Retention Rate
eLearning localization has also proven to be significantly effective when it comes to boosting knowledge acquisition and engagement rates for employees and learners. People are more likely to retain information more easily when it is presented in a language they are familiar with compared to a foreign language.
This is because language is intricately linked to an individual’s cultural and social context. Proficiency in a language, along with its cultural relevance, can enhance cognitive processing. and comprehension of information.
3. Accelerating Employees’ Engagement & Productivity
71% of executives report that employee engagement is critical to organizational success. Companies experiencing high levels of employee engagement see a 21% increase in profitability.
4. Reducing Injury & Fatality Rate Among Workers
In high-risk sectors such as manufacturing, safety training is crucial for safeguarding employees’ lives. For a multinational company with a global workforce, localizing online safety training is the most effective strategy to enhance workplace safety and ensure employee well-being, regardless of their location. When safety instructions or procedures are not fully understood, employees are more likely to make mistakes, potentially leading to severe accidents, injuries, or even fatalities. This issue is particularly prevalent among foreign workers. Localized training helps mitigate these risks by ensuring that all employees comprehend the necessary safety protocols in their native language.
5. Reducing Cost
Yes, online training or eLearning courses can significantly reduce training costs per employee, often costing between one-third to one-fifth less than traditional training methods. traditional classroom training.
Localization is pivotal for numerous reasons:
Enhanced Learner Engagement: Content presented in learners’ native language, along with culturally relevant examples, boosts engagement levels. By making the material more relatable, localization ignites learner motivation.
Enhanced Knowledge Retention: When information aligns with learners’ native language and cultural context, they’re more likely to retain and apply it. Localization plays a crucial role in improving knowledge retention and practical application.
Increased Reach and Accessibility: Localization enables organizations to reach a wider audience and make learning accessible to people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This marks a crucial stride towards fostering learning environments that are inclusive and accessible to all.
Uniform Learning Experiences: Localization guarantees that learners, irrespective of their geographic location, enjoy consistent educational quality and learning experiences.
How is eLearning localization different from eLearning translation?
With a workforce spread throughout the globe and learners desperate for content in their mother tongue, localizing your learning management system (LMS) is one of the most effective ways of keeping your audience engaged, inspired, and included. Over 90% of people want to learn in their native language, but there’s more to it than just translating the text from the original course language to another Translation is the process of creating an eLearning course in a different language while maintaining the original meaning. Localization, on the other hand, involves tailoring the course to suit the specific audience and cultural context.
This includes amending or adapting the images, idioms, fonts, currency, dates, tone, measurement units, and other integral details context.
Conclusion:
In short, eLearning localization benefits businesses with global workforces. It expands reach, boosts engagement and retention, improves productivity, and reduces accidents. By ensuring culturally relevant training, localization maximizes the impact of global training efforts.
DTP Labs is a desktop publishing company based in New Delhi, India. We offer book publishing Services, PDF to Word conversions, post-translation DTP, and e-learning localization services to translation agencies worldwide. To avail of our services, check out our website www.dtplabs.com, or contact us at info@dtplabs.com.