“Not a Mission Impossible”
The perceptions of successful graduates on the development of spoken english for the workplace
Caroline Malthus | Te Puna Ako Learning Centre, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
Hongyan Lu | Department of Nursing, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand
In New Zealand, Bachelor of Nursing (BN) programmes have in recent years attracted large cohorts of students with English as an additional language (EAL). The authors, a lecturer on the BN and a learning development advisor, observed many students successfully achieving both the BN qualification and nursing registration status. Nevertheless the prevailing discourse around EAL students within this programme, elsewhere at the institution and to some extent in the literature seem to be a deficit model in which lacks, gaps, problems and barriers, especially in communication, often have received more attention than acquired skills. This paper reports on a semi-structured retrospective interview-based study which explored the strategies and factors which in their own views helped 8 BN graduates to develop spoken language. We found that the interaction of socio-cultural learning with personal agency and a proactive approach to learning in academic and workplace contexts seem to have helped these graduates successfully develop communication skills. We argue that positively-focused initiatives for staff and students on both socio-cultural and individual contributions to oral communication development could help other EAL students succeed.
Keywords: nursing, English as an additional language (EAL), graduates, spoken language, socialisation, oral communication, sociocultural context, social learning, personal agency, identity, clinical practice
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Havery, Caroline
2019.
The effects of clinical facilitators' pedagogic practices on learning opportunities for students who speak English as an additional language: An ethnographic study.
Nurse Education Today 74
► pp. 1 ff.

San Miguel, Caroline & Fran Rogan
2015.
Assessing students' English language proficiency during clinical placement: A qualitative evaluation of a language framework.
Nurse Education Today 35:6
► pp. 771 ff.

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