Passed NCLEX on 2nd try - ESL speaker

Published Mar 13, 2016

281 Posts

Good morning everyone,

I am pleased to announce that I passed the NCLEX on my second try. This post is for anyone who speaks English as a second language, as I do.

Number 1: You can do it.

Number 2: You must dominate English to pass this test. My first step before attending nursing school was to take intensive English courses. I grew up mostly in the Dominican Republic and moved to Puerto Rico in my teens. Although a lot more English is spoken in Puerto Rico than in the Dominican Republic, I quickly learned that there is a huge difference between spoken English ("de la calle") and professional or medical English. When I prepared to take NCLEX for the first time, I took the Kaplan prep course. The professor warned me that my English was still probably not up to par. She gave us some English terms we would need to know and encouraged us to learn more. So I took another intensive advanced English course. And when I took NCLEX for the first time, I realized that my English was still not quite there. Not surprisingly, I did not pass. So these last few months have been English and NCLEX, English and NCLEX, constant drilling. I read my Bible in English, changed to an English church, even prayed in English (I think God was laughing at the beginning). Last week when I finished all my Q-Trainers from Kaplan, I felt that I dominated the English. When I arrived at the testing center my mind went blank and I could not remember anything in English at all! I forced myself to check in all in English, speaking to all my fellow sufferers and the ladies there only in English, to get in the zone.

Number 3: Do not be like some of my classmates who say, "Why don't they give the NCLEX in Spanish? (Or whatever language.) After all, we give the revÃ¡lida in English for them." Life is not fair. NCLEX is what it is. There are so many languages spoken in the USA, you could never have an accurate test in all of them. Learn what you need to learn. Most of your patients will speak English.

Number 4: It takes time, so start early. ENGLISH IS A VERY HARD LANGUAGE. You do not learn it in a few weeks or months. Formal, medical English is based on Latin and Greek. So is my language (Spanish). But do not let that give you false confidence! There are lots of words in my language that look very similar to English words, but they will throw you off! So a woman who is "embarrassed" is NOT embarazada (pregnant). A patient who is in "agony" is NOT in agonÃa ("death throes"). "Constipation" is not constipaciÃ³n (congestion) and so forth. LEARN YOUR MEDICAL TERMS IN YOUR TARGET LANGUAGE. Also, there are lots of idioms in English that you have to know. This is so, so, so important. If your first language is another Romance language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, etc.) you will have your own false cognates to avoid. If not, maybe you are luckier. A classmate of mine was from Romania and had tons of issues with false cognates. I never knew Romanian was a Romance language, but I guess it makes sense.

Number 5: You can do it! Work hard, keep a good attitude, keep your eye on the ball, and don't ever let yourself become negative.