Job Discussion Forums

[tofuman]

I'd like to know if my experience here has been typical. I responded to an ad to teach in China with a view to sending students to USA for RN training.

This was more or less a pipe dream on the part of the FAO. The school is not at all recognized by USA RN authorities and by law can not be. After arriving, I did some research and discovered the mandates specifying RN education. Our school is not even close.

The students are lovely, however.

There were a number of other falsehoods utilized in the recruiting process, but I shall rant some other time.

If you are an RN being recruited to teach nursing or medical English, be aware that the English level of most students is not even close to that necessary to study such a subject, at least not where I am. if you have had a different experience, I would like to hear about it.

The text that I am suppose to use is also unacceptable. It is written in a stilted, artificial style. It contains a number of factual errors, outdated information, as well as grammatical and spelling mistakes. I have been allowed to use other material, however.

Many of the students in the program are not interested in medical English. They performed well enough in oral English, but have no interest in learning medical English. I have suggested to some that they go to beauty college and forget about nursing, but societal and familial demands prevent them from doing something that they would enjoy.

Any other RNs, I would like to hear your experiences. Potential recruits, beware. My impression is that foreign teachers are primarily potential victims for unscrupulous and devious local "bosses." The term "foreign expert" means something entirely different to these folks than it means to you.

[Roger]

RN = "registered nurse"?

I can tell you the CHinese are pushing very hard at getting all kinds of staff to "study" abroad or to work abroad. State organisations are trying to place them everywhere for hard foreign dollars.

I am right now in a Guangxi town, and the local English training centre here is advertising the following:

"... School is proudly welcoming the President of Eurocollege to recruit CHinese nurses with our help"

It goes without emphasising that the nurses' English is nowhere near where it should be; after ten years at CHinese schools they are so dumbed down they can hardly tell the difference between the English words "doctor" and "patient".

[tofuman]

RN=registered nurse. That's correct Roger.

I did a bit of research to discover what reputable schools in the West require of non-native English speakers prior to admission to medical English courses. An IELTS of 5-5.5 or TOEFL of 500 - 550 was what I recall. My students have not passed CET band 4 but are expected to learn "electrocardiogram," hypertension," "myocardial infarction," and so forth. Some of them, bless them, are successful. We do a lot of review, and they enjoy word-matching games. Forget about serious English study of medical or nursing science for but just a few.

Do you happen to know to what TOEFL score CET Band 4 is equal?