english 101
she asked: “what are they thinking?”
do you agree with her? i completely agree.
let me clarify that i do not have anything against people who are not able to communicate well in english.
all i’m saying is…
…if you want to work in a place where english is the primary language, i cannot, for the life of me, understand why you don’t want to learn the language.
…and if you don’t want to learn the language, i cannot, simply cannot, understand why you want to work in a place where english is the primary language.
personally, if NCLEX is beyond my comprehension, i will be terrified to even try to take the exam. the mere idea of working in america, an english speaking country, will so scare me, i might pee in my pants just thinking about it.
seriously, i am really trying to understand the logic of those who disagree here, but i am running out of ideas. i am honestly open minded about this, and might change my stand if i see it from a different perspective.
let me hear from you…
I’ll be honest, I don’t get it either. My grandparents were from Europe and they spoke their native language at home, but never outside of their house. I started picking up their native language when I was about 3 or 4 years old. They were very upset, and told me that I MUST speak English because I am an American. They understood what was happening and stopped speaking their native language around me. Call me old fashioned or narrow minded, but I believe if you are in US, you should use English.
Comment by Mother Jones RN — July 24, 2006 @ 6:39 am
may-i think this is how the majority of America feels, however, most don’t say it, cuz we’ll be accused of being prejudiced or something. & that is simply not true! we want to help you, but you also need to help yourself too!
Comment by libby — July 25, 2006 @ 11:33 am
May, I had an eleven-year-old whose parents were born in Vietnam and they told him “I speak Vietnamese inside and English outside.” Meaning the house.
And yes, even though heavily accented and not perfect, his parents spoke English.
Comment by Kim — July 25, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
may - i’ve come across a number of spanish-, greek-, and polish-speaking patients. it was very difficult for me to give them the proper care without being able to communicate with them. i can’t imagine having to do that on a daily basis! our priority should be on PATIENT CARE instead of trying to plug in a warm body in a job that carries serious responsibilities. (and by the way, i’m first generation american, so i’ve been around bilingual people all my life.)
Comment by unsinkablemb — July 26, 2006 @ 4:08 am
[…] It might be controversial, but May from About A Nurse tries to understand why someone would not want to learn the language of the country where they are employed in English 101. (Um…someone tell me the NCLEX is given in English only…please?) […]
Pingback by Change of Shift: Volume One, Number Three // Emergiblog — July 26, 2006 @ 9:50 pm
ok, this may be the first “controversial” comment I have left, but I simply have to respond. I had a nurse, when I delivered my last child (9 mo ago) that was Korean. A semi-recent grad from the same nursing school I am currently enrolled in. Her name was Zoom (seriously) and she was AMAZING. I have four kids and didnt think there was much I still needed to know about newborns. I was wrong. Although she clearly did not have a handle on conversational English, she flat out rocked as a nurse. Her skills were obvious and allowed me to overlook my initial hesitations about her simply because of our mutual language barrier. She, Im certain, recieved no help with her NCLEX.
In direct regards to the article, I think we need nurses. Plain and simple. And in a country where Spanish is so commonly spoken, why not have ESL (English as a second language)nurses who had some help on their NCLEX? Im nt ofeeneded by that. They still need to be able to answer the question correctly-they still need to have the knowledge to perform their duty as a nurse. We certainly have many Spanish speaking Americans, why should they not be entitled to Spanish speaking nurses? And thank God for them, because my high school Spanish classes will surely escape me when I encounter my first Spanish speaking patient. I will be embarrassed that all I can remember is, “Hola” and then ever-so-thankful that I have a Spanish speaking nurse collegue (who may have had some language assistance on their NCLEX) there to save my ass and help my patient when I can’t. Don’t be fooled, I will not care if she had language help on her NCLEX, I will be thankful that the language help she did get with her NCLEX is making her presence and assistance to me and my patient possible.
Comment by intelinurse2b — July 27, 2006 @ 5:44 am
I agree with you, May - I know if anyone I know went to live in another country which had a different primary language and didn’t learn that language, I’d feel that was wrong - so that’s the way I feel here.
And I think it’s dangerous for a person not to be able to communicate clearly in a work situation where life and death situations come up much of the time. If you want to do the job and have enough initiative to pass the medical exams, then you will have enough initiative to study for and pass the language exams, and if you can communicate better with your patients and other members of the team, you’ll be a better member of the team in consequence.
Comment by Cath — July 28, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
Australia is a very multicultural society. In hospitals, we often rely on nursing staff who are fluent in a language other than English to communicate with patients who difficulties. We also have extensive interpreting services in place (although they can be overstretched). However, I absolutely believe all medical staff must have a basic grip of English, anything else is inviting potential disaster. In emergencies, no one wants to be distracted by having to interpret for someone who may fail to understand what is required of them.
Comment by HealthPsych — July 28, 2006 @ 10:12 pm
I agree that medical staff need to know English well in order to provide safe care. That said, my husband teaches NCLEX review, often to non-native speakers. Very often, they speak and understand English well, but get confused on the test because it is SO important to grasp the subleties of English. Maybe it doesn’t seem so to native English speakers, but I’ve known nursing students from the Ukraine, the Philippines and other places who were smart and spoke English just fine, that took the NCLEX 2 or 3 times because of that. Could this be the kind of English support they’re proposing?
Comment by TC — July 31, 2006 @ 7:39 pm
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