Table 1
Proposed strategies to incorporate translanguaging in medical language education
|
Medical language curricular element |
Translanguaging pedagogical strategy |
|---|---|
|
Didactics |
Include data on ethnolinguistic minority groups at the local, regional, and national level |
|
Invite community members as guest educators (e.g., community health workers, patients, interpreters) | |
|
Increase cross-disciplinary collaboration between medical and applied linguistics professionals in curriculum design and teaching of medical language didactics | |
|
Resources for self-study or homework |
Use books or glossaries that incorporate not only pure/standard language but also local linguistic practices |
|
Create (or have students create) supplemental resources that reflect local linguistic practices | |
|
Partner with students who grew up speaking the “target language” at home in a minority(ized) situation (e.g., Turkish in Germany) and have them serve as teaching assistants or provide supplemental practice for enrolled students | |
|
Clinical experiences |
Assign students to conduct a small ethnographic observation of community language practices and complete a guided reflection |
|
Provide service-learning experiences at clinical sites with high percentage patients of target linguistic minority population | |
|
Task students with creating an infographic, presentation, or poster using patient-centered language for a local community that incorporates local language usage (e.g., regionalisms) | |
|
Learner assessment |
Collect data on learner attitudes and ideologies pertaining to language variation in medical settings |
|
Integrate translanguaging moments in standardized patient or role-play cases that reflect linguistic practices typical of local community members | |
|
Involve community members whose language use is representative of a local variety to play patient roles in evaluated clinical encounters |