For parents who have been suddenly thrust into helping their children with their schoolwork at-home, there may be frustration when finding that the Google Classroom website is in a different language than what is spoken at home. In my case, my children are in a French school, but my own French skills are moderate at best.

As instructed by my child’s teacher, I logged into my child’s account on Google Classroom to find that his entire Google experience is in French. To help him with his work, I want it to be in English. Here’s how to change the language setting.

Note: This will not change the language of the actual class material posted by the teacher. You may need to use an online translation service like Google Translate(translate.google.ca) and paste the work in there to translate it.

Step 1: Log Into Google Classroom

Visit the Google Classroom website at https://classroom.google.com/ using your child’s Google username(email) and password. Likely your child has an email address on the school board’s domain. The teacher should provide this information. Once logged in you’ll see a dashboard with ‘cards’ for each of your child’s classes. Oh no! The entire Google site is in French and I want to change it. Here’s how:

Step 2: Go To Data Settings Page

In a new browser tab, visit the Data and Personalization page at: https://myaccount.google.com/u/1/data-and-personalization.

You will see a page that looks like this:

Scroll down until you reach the “General preferences for the web” section. Here’s what it looks like in French:

Click on the line that says “Language”. You will then see a section with language settings.

Click the little pencil icon beside the “Default language” setting. It will open a choice box where you can search for and choose a language:

Search for and click on your desired language and click the “Select” button on the bottom right. The popup box will close and the site will reload into the desired language.

You should now return to the tab where you had you child’s Google Classroom open, and refresh the page. The website should now be in your desired language.

Possible Problems

If you’re like me, you might have already been logged into Google with your own account. When visiting the Data and Personalization link in a new tab, it might have opened in your own account not your child’s. Keep your eye on the account icon in the upper right of the page to ensure that you are logged in as your child when editing the settings. If you aren’t, click on that account icon and switch to your child’s account.

Final Words

Please be patient as teachers work out the kinks involved with delivering classroom lessons online. Remember that teaching – especially in younger grades is a very hands-on, interactive experience. Teachers will have a unique challenge figuring out how to deliver classroom material in such a hands-off way. Parents with bilingual families who have children in school in a language not spoken at home, will find this especially challenging.

If you have constructive ideas for your child’s teacher, please share, however this is not the time to flood teachers and schools with complaints. Everything our kids manage to learn from home is a bonus – no one is expecting an experience on-par with in-classroom learning, and schools don’t expect parents to become teacher-replacements. We’re all in this together. Good luck and have fun!