Not Good at English and wants to prusue Nursing

[Pre-Nursing Student]

Hi,

I am a pre-nursing student. I struggle a lot with english as well as public speaking and communication skills in general. English is not my first language. I always feels like Nursing requires great communication skills as well as english speaking skills. I love Nursing but I’m afraid that if my english is not good, I won’t be able to work in the medical field sinces it is serious work. English courses is my worst nightmare! I would rather take a science course than an english course. I need to work on expanding my vocabulary because that is what I lack the most in. I’m insecure about my English, vocabulary as well as writing! I don’t know what I should do? Please give me some words of advice or any tips! Thanks in Advance !

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

Look into English as a second language classes in your area. Yes, being able to communicate is required for patient safety. Most likely one of the prerequisite classes you'll need to take will involve communication, which will help with the public speaking.

[NICU Guy, BSN, RN]

NCLEX can be difficult to pass for ESL graduates. NCLEX questions can be difficult to decipher for native English speaking graduates. Having English as your second language compounds the difficulty.

[Pre-Nursing Student]

Do you have any suggestion on how I can work on this? I'm thinking about taking more English classes to improve on my writing and work on expanding my vocabulary. Let me know if you have any suggestions or advice please!

[amoLucia]

Just a compliment - I think your post here was pretty well written esp for someone whose English is ESL level.

[HandsOffMySteth]

There are videos on the internet that can be a source of information.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0XZ7IHPLjldbSGtYfpbOug

[stamf03]

I recommend reading as much as possible to improve your vocabulary. Whenever you come across a word that you are unfamiliar with, look it up and see how the word can be used.

I know how it feels to be insecure about speaking a language outside of your native one. At one point, I lived in France and was so insecure about speaking French that I pretty much avoided any situation where I had to speak French. I had taken French classes at home, but I didn’t feel that they really prepared me.

I think an English class will help you gain a foundation of the language and proper usage. However, I think in order to build confidence and become comfortable, you should watch TV with subtitles and sing along to songs. Honestly, this helped a lot with pronunciation and accent. Try to speak English as much as possible with friends and maybe look into a tutor to help with writing and that way you can have also have someone to practice speaking with.