Training Foreign Students

It must be frustrating on both sides. Just place yourself in the position of having to lean a difficuilt subject in another language, taht you probably learned at school. It is realy strange, when we realsie that someone can not speak a de englis, we tned to talk veeeery slooowly and loud. If we have to talk in language we ar enot totlly comfortable in, we talk as quickly as possible, in the hope that nobody realises our mistakes :)

Ask them to repeat a question or answer very slowly, taht gives your brain time to adjust to their pronounciations of words. Then you repeat their question - "Are you asking ......? When they confirm you know you got ti right. The same method can be applied, if you did not undersand ask what you thought you understood, if he nodds everything OK.

If a studne tis particularly bad perhaps you should suggest an enlish language course to improve his english. I am certain your students are as frustrated as you are and with the added difficuilty that they have to learn a demanding subject, in language that is not their mother tongue.

It would be rude and unfortunate for everyone if they left your class without truly understanding. I believe that accomodations, such as writing, or an interpretor. Also, there are probably the same courses taught in other languages that may benefitthem them more. Perhaps you could work out a reciprical relationship with these, or if their are a lot of student's in a particular language, perhaps your facility can hire an interpretor or at least hire a student worker to help who is fluent in both.

Understanding the language a course is taught in is somewhat required for it to work, and if this is not happening, some reasonable accomodations may need to be made.