A language learning project for nurses

[veronicamaria]

Dear nurses

Two years ago I was asked to start a project for nurses to learn a foreign language. The project was funded by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland. The project will now be launched as a free online language course and a free mobile app for iPhone and iPad (and Android phones will be launched in December 2011) called Health Lingo. The application contains over 16 000 words related to health care and general words that might be needed...in English, Russian, Swedish and Finnish.

I am not a nurse by profession, but a language teacher, so my team and I have researched vocabulary in the field, had artists draw pictures and worked on thousands of vocabulary, grammar, audio and reading exercises online.

If you wish to use flashcards with pictures of body parts, medical equipment etc you can download them here with translations in all 4 languages

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46829542/V%C3%A5rdsvenska-medical-health-care-vocabulary-picture-and-text-flashcards

or download the mobile app Health Lingo or use the site http://www.vardsvenska.fi to learn some vocabulary yourself or print worksheets for students from the material bank, create crosswords with vocabulary from the health care sector...etc.

If you have feedback about this project, please contact me.

BR

Veronica

[mytamk]

Wow, thanks Veronica. Seems like it would be very helpful. Unfortunately, here in California, Spanish would be more useful. Also as a Chinese speaker studying Spanish and Japanese, those flashcard could be a god send. BTW, Japanese uses many Chinese characters especially medical terms. It would not be too much extra work for the two languages. Anyway thank you for doing the project and I look into its progress.

Ruby

[veronicamaria]

Dear Ruby

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I see your point from the perspective of where you live. We have, however, the possibility to continue the project next year, and as a matter of fact there is an EU programme that allows our project partner to be either from the USA, Canada or Australia. (Other languages can be added quite easily both to the website, the flash cards and the mobile application, it's just a question of having the translations done.) If I can find a nursing school or a hospital that would be willing to participate in continuing the project as in "transfer of innovations" and who believe the results would benefit their country as well, then I believe it would be possible to do so. The project proposal has to be submitted by February 2012, so I will start working on this immediately.

I will put up a posting here to search for a possible partner who would like to work on developing more material for nurses and learning languages that are helpful in their work.

Here is also the link for the flash cards that have no text, so they can be used in any language.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46829496/V%C3%A5rdsvenska-medical-picture-flashcards

Best regards

Veronica

[freeornearly]

Thank you so much for that information!