Better using taxpayer money - more than just English lessons

How to help francophone healthcare employees better serve their francophone patients through English training sessions!

École de langues de Lanaudière developed a method that incorporates the manual alphabet into language acquisition.  By associating the tactile experience of signing with the mental process of pronouncing an individual letter, students learn faster than they otherwise would.  At the same time, they acquire another skill that is helpful for those with hearing impairments.  Clearly, the more people there are who can sign, the better for the hearing impaired community. The benefit of this program is threefold:  students learn faster, they are silmultaneously taught to communicate with two alphabets rather than one (thereby benefiting more people), and finally, all of this can be done with less money.

Académie linguistique LES MOTS DITS ANGLAIS was invited to teach an ESL training program at the Montreal Heart Institute, and agreed on the condition that the course would be run as a pilot project. The president of the multidisciplinary committee was delighted with our proposal. It was equally important to teach the employees of the MHI how to better tap into their internal resources (i.e. coworkers and volunteers) to improve their English. Our goal was to create a model that could be used on a larger scale in other regions of Québec, and even internationally.

Académie linguistique LES MOTS DITS ANGLAIS contacted the president of the Québec Center for the Hearing Impaired, and presented her with the idea. She supported the project and we worked as a team. Her mandate was to teach healthcare employees valuable information that would help to better serve the patients.  Our mandate was to teach English. Together, we adapted her usual presentation into an English lesson. The employees learned to better serve members of the English community and the hearing impaired. École de langue de Lanaudière took it one step further and asked her to help narrow down words that are signed the same way in both langue des signes québécoise and American sign language so that we could incorporate them in ESL exercises.

We would like to see one international sign language eventually, but, without such a standardized means of communication, we only teach signs that are the same in both languages (i.e. American sign language or langue des signes québécoise). This approach, therefore, helps the francophone employees to better serve the francophone deaf community, by taking part in an English lesson!

Interestingly, our method has worked equally well with adults of all ages and children.  In fact, the kinaesthetic aspect has helped many kids who have difficulty learning through traditional means. They discover that they can master a new and special skill quite quickly.  Far from just an ESL tool, we hope to see this technique used to teach the alphabet in all kindergarten and grade one classes.  Not only will children learn faster, but imagine a society where everyone knows the manual alphabet!  
 
See the article Lost in translation, bad for your health in the McGill daily, written by our eldest daughter, Chelsea Tinnion, and the web page of our identical twin daughters, Susan and Katherine Willcocks.
 
Entries in the lexicon were verified by professionals and specialists in accordance with l'Office québecois de la langue française (Québec's board of the French language).
 
Finally, the vulgar section is included because francophone caregivers often use words like ''sh**'' without realizing that such terms are not appropriate. They might say something like: I'm coming Mrs. Jones. I'm coming to clean up the sh** in your bed. Some simply don't know that they should not be saying this in a professional context, and it needs to be addressed.  English patients are occasionally offended, but they soon learn  that the francophone caregiver probably doesn't intend to be offensive. Social workers in particular are well aware that people with AIDS, drug addicts, alcoholics, the homeless, etc. have likely been exposed to this sort of language. Bringing these taboo terms into English language training within health and social services creates a special connection between the patient who often bursts out laughing and the caregiver intent on learning what not to say.