Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello, everyone:
As you can see from the number of hits on this forum for Medical English, this is a very popular subject! However, many of the questions and comments are related to Nursing English. I'd like to open this new discussion with a couple of questions: how many of you are actually teaching nurses to speak English, not medical students or doctors? Are your needs different from those of the teachers working with medical students?

There is an international movement afoot now to begin bilingual education for nurses in degree programs at colleges and universities. This is being considered in China and has just begun throughout Latin America. So here is another question: if you are working with nurses or nursing students, what is the actual goal of your program?

I look forward to hearing from as many people as possible. I think this could be a great discussion!

Yours truly,

Melodie Hull, RPN, MSc, TESL
Nurse-Educator & Consultant
Canada

Hi Melodie,
I'm currrently teaching nurses from China preparing to undertake a bachelor of nursing course in New Zealand. We focus a lot on reading and writing skills in preparation for university, we use local tv programmes for selecting and teaching some vocab and basically shadow the first year at university in preparation for the real thing.

Hello! Seems we keep meeting on these discussion boards. Great!

When you say you are teaching nurses from China who are preparing to take a BSN 'course' in New Zealand, do you mean they will be taking the entire 4 year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program? Are they not getting any credit from the education in China? Or do you mean they are taking some sort of upgrading courses? Are your students already nurses when they come to you?

I've spoken to a number of teachers internationally who are also using television shows to enhance classroom learning. Would you like to recommend any programs in particular for the readers of this site? Is there a lot of nursing dialogue in these shows or is it doctor-centered, again? (I'm hoping to keep the focus on nurses on this thread.)

What part or parts of your ESL classes do your students like the best? Reading, writing, speaking or listening? How much nursing content and nursing language (career-specific language) do you have in your course content?

I look forward to hearing from you.
Bye for now...
Melodie in Canada