Overcoming a strong foreign accent
I have a lot of diversity in my dental assisting program. Where I have trouble is helping a student from another country, say Russia, Germany and Latin. Dental assistants are required to educate the patient and to deliver clear post operative instructions to their patients. I can barely understand the student when they are speaking and I am not sure how to coach them in 7 months to loose the accent so they can be better understood? Can anyone offer and suggestions?
Benjamin,
I think this is a good idea & it helps to keep students from being embarrassed to ask about the "obvious" items that may not be obvious to them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I have a small advantage because I teach math to students. I often can use universal quantifiers (symbols, theorems) that everyone recognizes. However, even basic ideas like long division are written differently in different countries. My rule of thumb is to define everything in class, even the ideas that "should" be obvious, so if a student does not use the same language, we can develop these terms as the course evolves.
Greetings Holt!
Very good approach to the non-English speaking student. But you are correct that the student will have challenges if they learn to be fluent in English. So the question is does this type of issue start at the time of admissions where program requirements are discussed? At a minimum ensure that students are in an ESL program. We have the responsibility to help students be successful in all areas.
Does anyone else have suggestions?
Keep up the good work!
Jane Davis
ED106 Facilitator
I teach Dental Assisting also and I had students with a strong foreign accent.I remember now one student ,from Vietnam,who had a very strong accent ,and I suggested to her to take an ESL Class at a Community College,and I also kept on correcting her pronounciation of basic english words.Needless to say there's a big challenge for any student to pronounce correctly dental terms too.
Definately ,in a dental office ,a dental assistant should communicate well with the patients and especially motivate them in following the post operative instructions .
WOW! Todd am I missinterpreting what you have stated here? I have been seeing this situation as a struggle as an instrutor and coming from the position that the student had the disability by MY not allowing myself to hear her. I had her pegged as unreachable/unteachable. This student will be the one that teaches me not to just teach but the reach and then teach. It is like that in all we do. Many business Consutlants say that it is best to be "interested rather than intersting when it comes to winning at getting in and being able to get to know how they think. I had resisted being a part of this forum, you know "I'don't have time", blah,blah. I totaly get that the course was no accident, nor was my having that question to discuss and you said what you said about that. I can't thank you enough for having me see how to help her, help me, help her.
I will keep you posted, it should be enlightening.
Cynthia
Program Director of Dental Assisting
we have the same issues here, i found that just having conversations about daily events will help you pick up on the accent. it also goes both ways, the person you are talking to feels the same way about you so the longer the conversation the easier it becomes, by the end of a 20 min conversation you will find yourself not saying " im sorry could you repeat that"
