IELTS v/s CELBAN for NURSES( IEN'S) Canada

[pkkalras]

It has been a very frequent question asked by every International nurse pursuing upgrading as an LPN or RN in Canada. CELBAN* is a four module English assessment test that is required for International nurses in Canada. It is accepted by all licensing bodies all over Canada. It is especially designed in Canada.

In this four module test in which reading, writing, listening and speaking abilities of a student are accessed individually.

The CELBAN test is designed in Canada, especially for nurses by Canadian Language Benchmark an is entirely from the medical background. The Nurses feel comfortable to take the test as it requires the test of English proficiency for medical report writing, medical vocabulary and interaction with patients for treatment. Reading section may include reading topics as Diabetes, Rabies etc. Similarly, Listening section has video and audio scenes like bed shift report, communication between nurse and doctor, patient and nurse, etc. Speaking section has role plays for history taking and giving discharge instructions to the patient. The writing section is the easiest one where you have to write an incident report and filling an entry form of a patient. All questions in reading and listening modules have only one type; multiple choice questions. The students have to score in Listening-10 bands (92% Out of 84 questions, they have a chance of making 5-6 mistakes.) Reading- 8 bands, Writing 7 bands and Speaking 8 bands. Although listening is a bit challenging task, yet most students are able to pass the test in the first chance.

The nursing students have already done the medical topics thoroughly in their nursing school. Most of the modules of the test are based on medical topics; therefore it is easier for the nurses to pass the test. Consequently, there are more chances of passing CELBAN test by the nurses than IELTS.

However, IELTS (the International English Language Testing System) is an internationally recognized language test designed to assess the language ability of candidates in all four modules as Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking from the topics based to meet an academic standard.

Nurses are required to take an Academic module, in which all topics are taken from English Journals, Magazines, Research books and Newspapers. Nurses study English as a major subject up to Grade 12 in most countries where English is a second language. Accordingly, their basic English is not of very high standard. In writing section they have to write a 250 word essay on any current, debatable issue or a philosophical topic. There is a graph writing also which is totally new for the student. In a like manner, reading section is again highly complicated. The vocabulary is very tough in the academic module. Moreover, the topics are very confusing and there are 13 types of questions in listening and reading section. All question types are different. Students have to learn skills and strategies to solve every type of question such as; yes, no type, true, false, headings, fill in the blanks, summary completion, table completion, multiple choice and many more. The students need grammatical accuracy and deep understanding of English language as well as literature. The band Score requirement is; Listening-7.5 bands, Reading- 7 bands, Writing- 7 bands and Speaking -7 bands. The Reading and Writing sections are the most confronting for the nurses.

In the nutshell, I must say that CELBAN test is easier for nurses than IELTS. I have been teaching both for almost 9 years in Canada for CELBAN and 21 years for IELTS. On the basis of results of the students, I have seen more pass rate in CELBAN test for the nurses.

Parvinder Kaur Kalra

Guru Learning Institute