English for nurses

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ssean
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:11 am
Location: new zealand

English for nurses

Post by ssean » Sun Sep 25, 2005 2:02 am

This is more along the lines of a general inquiry.
I have recently, in the last year or so, began teaching a English for Nursing foundation course, basically giving international students the tools to enable them to undertake a undergraduate nursing degree here in New Zealand.

But looking on this site it seems as though this might actually be an area I could develop in. I have been teaching ESOL for a number of years now and find this new field an exciting challenge, plus the students are all working towards definite concrete goals, and are a real delight to teach.

I am currently studying towards a Masters in Language Teaching,and would welcome any advice from people already in the field about how best to make what I am doing a career choice. Also do you think there is a need for such specialised teaching, and in which parts of the world.

Don McChesney
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jul 16, 2005 8:46 am
Location: Zhengzhou

Post by Don McChesney » Thu Sep 29, 2005 1:11 am

Depends on what you intend to be the endpoint of your teaching, and to whom.
For China, there is a need, as most of the nurses want to go overseas, but the Chinese Nursing qualification is not recognised, so they need IELTS at 6'ish, and often do further language training in the Uni at great expense, before starting their undergrad courses.
English Nursing is taught here, but it had real problems with the general communication skills of students in normal English, let alone medical terminology. In addition, some nurses train in Uni in China, but the majority of students have failed the high school exam and nursing is a lower level choice. As nursing is a poorly paid job in China, few academically good students choose the subject.
Good luck anyway. Nurses are needed worldwide, (except China).

ssean
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2004 12:11 am
Location: new zealand

Post by ssean » Fri Sep 30, 2005 12:14 am

Yeah, cheers for the reply. I think I can testify to what you're saying. I'm currently teaching students from China, English for Nursing. These are students ,some of whom have qualified as nurses in China, and see nursing as a good way of getting enough points to qualify for residency. But while nursing is quite well paid in NZ, it is obviously not the case in their own country. To become a registered nurse in NZ they need an IELTS band score of 7 in all areas, and considering they are coming here on a band of 4, it is a very big ask.

M.Hull
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Jan 09, 2004 6:43 pm
Location: Canada
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Post by M.Hull » Sat Oct 15, 2005 5:05 am

Hello from Canada:
I agree completely with what both of you are saying. I teach English to Nurses here in Canada and abroad. There are alot of difficulties with the Chinese nurses not having enough basic English to take a nursing-specific language course let alone take an up-grading course in nursing, in English to qualify to work in our country. I spoke on a subject similar to this at the International Symposium of English for Medical Purposes in Xi'an, China last year. Most of the attendees were Chinese linguists teaching English to their own medical students. The research they had done clearly showed that the medical students (who study language classes very similar to those of the nurses) were unhappy with their English for Medical classes. The results seemed to show that the course content was very 'linguistically' focussed and full of structure, rules, and mimicking how nurses and doctors write in English-speaking journals. This, of course, is not the everyday language of health care professionals and is in the end quite unhelpful for the Chinese nurse or doctor who wishes to work in an English-speaking country. Evenso, the 70+ professors at the symposium were very rigid in their beliefs that THEY were the exeperts and THEY knew what the curricula required, etc. Hmmmmmmm... troublesome, don't you think?

Feel free to visit my own English for Nurses websites at www.e4on.ca and www.nursingesl.com if you're interested.

Melodie Hull
Nurse-Educator & Consultant

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