Saturday Presentations

Session 1

1:10-3:05

Different specialties, different feedback? English medical exam advice from a language teacher and a healthcare professional -- Dr. Theron Muller

This presentation describes how discourse analysis was used to analyze a language expert’s and a medical expert’s feedback to a student preparing for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 2 Clinical Skills Exam. Sessions were initially held between the student and language expert, then later between the medical expert, language expert, and student. In this presentation, the language expert’s feedback is contrasted with the medical expert’s feedback, with the goal of understanding similarities and differences between the language expert and medical expert’s feedback. Tentative findings include the medical expert’s tendency to focus on the parameters of the exam, such as performance expectations and requirements, and attention to standards and practices in medical practice. On the other hand, the language expert tended to focus on the unique characteristics of particular cases and procedures. Implications for the teaching of English for medical purposes are explored.

Dr. Theron Muller is an Associate Professor at the University of Toyama, Japan. He is lead editor on two book projects, Innovating EFL Teaching in Asia (2012) and Exploring EFL Fluency in Asia (2014), both published with Palgrave Macmillan.

Challenges in helping nursing students with developmental disorders to learn English – Our experience -- Yutaka Kato

According to a survey, the proportion of students with disabilities has risen from 0.16% in 2006 to 0.86% in 2016. Meanwhile, the Act for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities, enacted in 2013, makes it obligatory for colleges to at least try to make reasonable considerations for students with disabilities. This presentation focuses on our experience with a student with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). After summarizing some basic information about ASD, I will introduce existing literature, including the data published by the Japan Student Services Organization, on how such students can be helped. Based on the literature and on our endeavors to help the student, which also affected other students, I will discuss the unique challenges faced in helping students with ASD to learn a language in a faculty of nursing, with a view to identifying practical guidelines to help future students in the same predicament.

Yutaka Kato is an Associate Professor in the Department of Liberal Arts at Ishikawa Prefectural Nursing University. His main research interests include comparative study of the ethical/legal dimensions of healthcare in the United States and Japan, healthcare provision to foreign patients, and English education for nursing students. Before completing his Ph.D., he taught English at private institutions for a decade.

Student and teacher evaluations of a nursing English fluency speaking programme -- Paul Mathieson, Rima Ghashut, Francesco Bolstad, & Sufian Elfandi

Many Japanese nursing students arrive at nursing school having spent upwards of six years studying English with the primary aim of passing university entrance exams. And given the absence of speaking assessment in university entrance exams, many of our students have little experience and little confidence speaking in English. This is despite feedback from some Japanese nurses stating that they consider being able to talk to patients and their families as their main English need (Willey et al., 2016). Clearly there seems to be a gap between expectations and reality. This presentation reviews the fluency speaking programme that we have developed which has been designed to try to reduce this gap. In addition to outlining the rationale for the programme, we will also share feedback from students and teachers about what they see as some of the positive aspects of the programme, as well as areas which we can improve.

Paul Mathieson has lived in Japan since 2006, and currently teaches medical students and nursing students in the Department of Clinical English at Nara Medical University. His research interests include vocabulary acquisition, content and language integrated learning, and learner motivation.

Rima Ghashut is an ophthalmologist from Libya who recently completed her PhD at Kyoto University. She is working as a medical and nursing English teacher at Nara Medical University. Rima is interested in medical communication skills and language integrated learning.

Non-Japanese Simulated Patient Sessions in an English Course for Japanese Nursing Students -- Jeffrey Huffman

Simulation education employing standardized or simulated patients is becoming more common in nursing education in the U.S., particularly for the purpose of improving communication skills and cultural competence. This presentation presents a literature review and describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of simulated patient (SP) sessions conducted in a required English course for nursing students. The SP actors were non-Japanese, and the educational objective was the cultivation of English communication skills and cultural competence in healthcare settings. A post-session questionnaire was administered (response rate: 38.2%) to assess students' perceptions regarding the educational benefit of the sessions. Results indicate that the sessions raised students’ awareness of their current ability to communicate and interact with non-Japanese patients and motivated them to improve in these areas. SP experiences focusing on English-language communication and cultural competence can serve as an important transition between classroom English and the English required in real-life clinical settings.

Jeffrey Huffman is an assistant professor of English at St. Luke’s International University, Graduate School of Nursing Science in Tokyo. His interests are ESP (nursing/medical, political science/economics), reading in a foreign language, study abroad, language testing, and the health humanities.

Session 2 (Posters)

3:20-3:40

Motivations and Attitudes of English Language Learners at a Japanese Healthcare University -- Donald Patterson

This quantitative study was conducted in order to gain insights into healthcare majors' attitudes toward English. The following three questions were explored: What is the correlation between students’ English achievement and various attitudinal and motivational areas? Which of these areas have the greatest and least correlation to the amount of effort students’ are willing to put into their English learning? How do healthcare students’ attitudes and motivations for learning English compare with other Japanese university students? Sixteen (n=16) female nursing and social work students completed pre- and post-tests to measure their English proficiency and a questionnaire adapted from Taguchi, Magid, & Papi (2009) on their attitudes toward English learning. Test and questionnaire data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and questionnaire data was compared with data from Taguchi et al (2009). This presentation will present the findings and discuss the implications for improving English programs for healthcare students in Japan.

Donald Patterson is an associate professor at Serei Christopher University, where he teaches general English courses for healthcare students and an ESP course for rehabilitation students. His research interests include the internationalization of education and English learner mindsets.

How Japanese nursing students learn English through content -- Sachiko Takahashi & Mieko Yamaguchi

This presentation shows how nursing students learned English at the same time as they learned nursing content. Two nursing students gathered newspaper articles and literature reviews about passive smoking, and examined the relationship between typical Japanese university students’ beliefs about smoking and their metacognitive strategy uses. The nursing students collected data in Japanese from approximately 400 university students aged 19–21, adopting a quantitative design. The questionnaire included questions about the undergraduate students’ demographic data and their metacognitive strategy use. The nursing students found that although most of the students knew the term “passive smoking,” they did not know exactly what “Japan’s antismoking ordinance” referred to. The nursing students successfully learned the content and the language at the same time. They then created a poster presentation for a public health conference in English.

Sachiko Takahashi is a professor of Himeji University. She is interested in how people learn a second language.

Mieko Yamaguchi is working as a professor of Himeji University. She is a registered nurse.

Session 3

3:45-5:40

The Clinical Case Presentation: A Nursing English Perspective -- Michael Guest

Clinical case presentations, also known as case reports, are a standard feature of medical discourse, whether written or spoken. Case presentations not only allow co-medical staff to become aware of unusual or interesting clinical cases and thereby further their understanding of clinical practice, but when practiced or performed orally in a second language, case presentations can have the effect of helping learners to consolidate, organize, and prioritize, clinical content. In this presentation, the general structure of case presentations will be outlined, based on the author’s extensive field work on the topic, but with a particular focus upon what aspects of case presentations are emphasized among nursing practitioners. Accurate, succinct, and standardized forms of conveying nursing case data will be demonstrated, along with suggestions as to how these might be introduced into classrooms and practiced even by those students and practitioners with less proficient English skills.

Michael Guest is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Miyazaki. He is the author of several books, articles, research papers, and blog pieces on English language teaching, specializing in medical spoken discourse.

A student-centered role-play course for nursing students incorporating smartphone activities -- Craig Woods

This presentation introduces the teaching method and materials used with 2nd-year nursing students at Kanazawa Medical University in Ishikawa for a book titled “English Conversation for Nurses.” The course commenced in 2018, and the aims included practicing nurse-patient role-plays in English and improving learner autonomy. Students used their smartphones to do preparatory activities before class and comprehension activities in class for each unit using Google Forms. Example role-plays were shown using the accompanying DVD. For oral assessment, they produced and delivered personal role-plays, which were graded using a basic rubric. The materials created for the course will be shared, including how to incorporate the online activities. Data showing self-study participation rates in smartphone activities, oral assessment results, and student feedback on the course will also be presented.

Craig Woods is a Senior Assistant Professor of English, teaching nursing and medical students at Kanazawa Medical University. His interest is in using technology to promote autonomous learning and the interactive learning of English.

Comics in the Classroom: Using English Comics to Improve Student Communicative Abilities -- James Kelly

Despite an overwhelming social reach in Japan, comics, as sequential art, are generally unused tools at an instructor’s disposal when teaching basic English language skills. Using primarily Archie comics, research was done twofold; first, in-lieu of a regular writing project, selected students were given short comic stories to read, compare and critique; second, all students used their visual language and English language skills to write small stories with pages of sequential art given without dialogue. Prior to embarking on the study of EFN, does exposure to English language comics foster improvement in language abilities necessary? Yes. Does it make any mark on student verbal communication skills? Somewhat. Does it have any effect at all? Yes.

James Kelly is Assistant Professor of Professional and Basic Foundations at Kameda University of Health Sciences and the founder, developer and Instructor of Staff English Development Course, Kameda General Hospital, Kamogawa, Chiba.

From Input to output: How to help students learn medical English with card games Materials development -- Maki Inoue

Nursing students in Japan need to acquire basic English in order to communicate with non-Japanese people in their workplace. They are required to understand patients’ complaints as well as communicate, explain, and give instructions. Nurses have innumerable occasions to talk with foreign patients and co-workers. But it is not easy for them to fill the gap between communication needs and nurses’ proficiency in English. As a result, they are less motivated to continue learning English. This presentation introduces an enjoyable and effective way to motivate nursing students to learn medical English by using card games in English classes. Sets of eight symptom cards in seven categories were created. Beginning with English input activities involving listening to and understanding words, definitions, and complaints, students progress to output activities by applying the medical English that they learned while enjoying playing card games in groups.

Maki Inoue has been teaching English and nursing English at several universities in Aichi for more than twenty years. She's very much interested in developing nursing English materials.

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