Just started LPN school last week. There are 26 students in my class. We have the same classes with everyone, same classroom. The woman who sat beside me on the first day is an ESL student (English as a Second Language). Now, she would have had to pass an English proficiency test to get into the program, but she is struggling with both the regular English conversation in lectures and definately with A + P.
I'm already quite proficient in medical terminology and A + P. She interupts me AT LEAST 3-4 times per lecture to ask what word was just said, or what page the instructor is referring to, or the meaning of a word etc. She is a very nice person and I do feel for her situation, but I am there to become a nurse, not be her translator!!!!!
I find it soooooooooo distracting and frustrating to be interrupted so much when all I want to do is listen and take notes. She will often ask to borrow my notes at the end of class since she didn't catch half of what was said.
I called an instructor today to talk about the situation, but wasn't called back. I guess she had already left for the weekend.
I don't want to change seats as I'm right at the front. It's not even that I don't want to sit beside this woman, but how do I approach this without coming accross like an insenstive jerk? If this was an English speaking student doing this, I would have no problem telling them to stop interrupting me so much.
But because she is ethnic and ESL, I feel like I would be discriminatory or really mean by telling her STOP INTERUPTING ME ALL DAY TO ASK FOR CLARIFICATION OF ENGLISH WORDS AND INSTRUCTIONS!!
I don't want the instructor to single her out and make her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps the instructor would be willing to make a general class announcement like "we've noticed some whispering going on during lectures. Please refrain from interuppting classmates during lectures and save your questions for the end of class" or something like that.
