Patience
Students that have learning and language difficulties can be a real source of frustration when you have a full class and see that one person is just not able to go at the same speed as others. In my experience the only real solution is additional time... often in one on one sessions or additional tutoring. These students ARE able to learn, it just indeed takes more time.
Eddie,
patience is one of the key ingredients in working with all students & especially those who are struggling learners.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I found that lots of patience and positive motivation helps my students
Robert,
yes, the tutoring can be very effective; but as you point out a key is their willingness to participate & engage with the tutoring.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I found that if you can get the student to participate, tutoring works great. Some one on one time seems to help them understand the subject better.
Dorothea,
this is excellent & applause for your college. This kind of help is generally inexpensive, but highly valuable.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Dorothea,
this is excellent & applause for your college. This kind of help is generally inexpensive, but highly valuable.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
My college has set up an in-house program directly to mentor and encourage the techniques of: overcoming the fear of test taking, teaching student how to study, reading comprehension (decoding). Some of our students were never taught these techniques when they were in school. We as a whole have the responsibility of helping our students achieve their chosen career goal.
Sameerah,
excellent point made here. Our students do have lives outside of our classes & we should honor & respect this & try to help as much as possible when & where we can.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
As instructors we also have to take into consideration that most of our students-(especially evening students)...have alot of obligations...work...family...and school...so we have to come up with ways to make our classrooms less stressful
Justin,
this is an excellent point & not only does this help the students, but also can help us from getting frustrated over "slowing down" again.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
It's important to be mentally prepared ourselves when dealing with students with disabilities. I just expect to have to catch these students up to task after every lecture but you get used to it quickly and start to plan around it. This way the rest of the class moves at a normal pace and the students in need of extra help don't feel left behind.
This is my experience also. What has helped me is repetition. The other students have lessons reinforced and the language difficulties have time to process. Additional tutoring is also helpful.
zach,
this is a great point. We also need to remember that these students are not stupid or unintelligent. They are working through the complexities of a new language & we have the opportunity to help them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
learning new content is very challenging for students who dont understand the english language in text books.lucky there is pictures in the text books which helps the explanations of qustions.this situation requires alot of patiences and alot of time.Students with this challenge,I as a instructor use my stong students who are bilingual and make time after class to help those students so they can move foward with the rest of the class.As a instructor we can not forget about this.Just cause they are challenged we should not forget them.If the student is willing to learn and be taught....
Mr zach bernal intellitec college.
I also have to teach medical language and it is difficult even for the native English speaker. so patience is very important and sometimes i even have trouble my students think its funny then we together sound out the word and go over the meanings and they all do great no matter what language they speak.
Rebecca,
this is a great reminder to be aware of the struggle that some students may have with the vocab & "jargon" in our related fields. It becomes a second language to us so we need to be aware of the challenges for them.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Learning new content in a new language can be very challenging. In my program, medical language is required learning. This language is like a foreign language for native English speakers and can present even more of a challenge.
