title: Developing a course to teach Spanish for health care professionals.
abstract: To make the baccalaureate nursing curriculum more responsive to changing U.S. demographics, the School of Nursing at The University of Texas at Austin instituted a required course, titled Spanish for Health Care Professionals. This course, developed in collaboration with the University's Department of Spanish and Portuguese, focuses on conversational Spanish using the communicative language teaching approach, rather than grammar and medical terminology instruction. Class activities, along with course materials, are linked to nursing practice. Course assignments are designed to develop authentic communication in reading, writing, listening, speaking, and understanding culture, and students demonstrated oral and written linguistic gains in relation to their Spanish fluency and accuracy. Because the Hispanic population is now the largest minority group in the United States, this course will help nurses communicate with Spanish-speaking patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, Nebraska, USA.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bloom
authors.forename: Gayle M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Timmerman
authors.forename: Dolores
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sands
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D003142:Communication; D003479:Curriculum; D004508:Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000208:ethnology*; D006801:Humans; D019303:Multilingualism; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D010865:Pilot Projects; D016730:Program Development; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology; D013663:Teaching / Q000458:organization & administration; D013781:Texas; D016746:Transcultural Nursing / Q000193:education