We have a lot of fun in our English class.  For the last three months, I’ve been teaching this small group of women. They are all internationally educated nurses, and the course helps them with communication skills.

They are all work-ready for Canada, which means they have passed the exam which qualifies to work as an RN or RPN in Canada.  When they tell me what that has involved, I’m amazed at the journey they’ve been on!

Some already have full-time jobs,  most have families,  and some drive or take the transit up to an hour to get to the course… such commitment!

The course is free for them – costs are covered by Canadian Immigration, and they really appreciate it.  I wish Canadians all over could observe these students, to see how hard they are working to be best prepared for a job here.

We do many interactive activities. They work in pairs and groups a lot, to help give as much talking time as possible. They really need to keep improving their spoken English, of course.

I don’t teach nursing content – I teach communication skills to use within the nursing workplace. There are so  many cultural components to working in Canada. And when you go into a field like nursing, you really need excellent communication skills!

This group has grown quite attached to each other. They’re supportive, fun, hard-working and ambitious.

In this task, they had to work in groups and decide how to react to a challenging patient – an adult male with a scalp wound was brought in to the hospital, swearing at staff and wanting to smoke.

We do lots and lots of role plays.

The students practice showing empathy. For example, it’s not okay to say ‘I understand how you feel’ because well, you probably don’t! So students learn to say, ‘I understand you are frightened.” For somebody whose first language is not English, this sounds almost the same – but the implications are quite different!

They learn how to reassure, (”We’re here to support you”,  “I don’t know the answers, but I can help you find them” , “We have a lot of experience dealing with this kind of treatment.”)

The scenarios and role plays we practice seem to be endless! But it’s amazing how much better they get at it over the weeks.

We also practice pronunciation of medications.  In the image below you se a Dominos game where students have to match words and word stress patterns. LIPitor is pronounced with this stress pattern: Ooo (accent on the first syllable). Although they know all the names in their language, and recognize them immediately in written form, it’s hard for them to remember the exact pronunciation – but we practice, practice, and practice… and they now remember them all!

I make grammar practice activities with a nursing focus. Here we were practicing tag questions.

We have discussions about what’s appropriate culturally in different contexts. Of special interest to them is how to interact appropriately with colleagues. Workplace culture varies so much around the world!

With these cards, the students worked in pairs to share a problem, with the partner using expressions appropriate for giving advice. “It’s important for you to…”,  “I think it would be a good idea for you to…”,  “Why don’t you…?”

There are a lot of different ways to use passive forms – and they are a real difficulty for lots of English learners.

The transfusion was done by Michelle.
The transfusion has already been done.
Has the transfusion already been done?

As you can see, I use a lot of cards. The reason I prefer cards to worksheets is because it allows them to mix up the order, without seeing what’s coming next. I make a set for each student so they can keep them handy and practice regularly – the size allows them to review on the bus, in a waiting room, even on the toilet! :)

And I’m always listening for errors that come up repeatedly. I collect them, we correct them, and then I give them an error correction sheet to help them practice, to test themselves.

I just noticed a mistake I made in one of my corrections in the column on the right.  Can you find it?

Anyway, it’s such a delightful, refreshing change from general ESL classes, and I’ve had such fun teaching the course!

Last week after class we had a potluck lunch! Everybody brought some food, and we enjoyed our last time as a complete group, since Janayna was leaving a couple days later for her hometown in Brazil.

There is so much comraderie among them – it’s a wonder that three months ago they didn’t know each other at all.

Jeannie (Korea), and Janayna (Brazil)

They gave me a Christmas gift – a huge basket full of bath and body stuff…. mmmmm!

And I handed out my boxes of baked goods that I had prepared for them.

Paramjeet demonstrated a little Punjabi dance…

Janayna rocked the Samba…

And Olga (Russia) showed Cynthia (China) some Cha-Cha-Cha moves.

I’m so attached to this group. You’d think by now it would be easy to move on from one class to another… but no, it is still very difficult!

What a blessing to be in their lives for a few months.