Experiences of clinical tutors with English as an additional language (EAL) students

Clinical tutors, referred to in the international literature as clinical supervisors, facilitators, mentors or instructors, are responsible for providing and supervising workplace learning opportunities for groups of Bachelor of Nursing (BN) students. They also play a key role in assessing students. The role modeling and support provided by both clinical tutors and registered nurses (RN) or nurse preceptors helps students become familiar with the language in which nursing work is realised. As BN student cohorts in New Zealand have become more diverse in terms of cultures, ethnicities and language backgrounds, clinical tutors have to directly facilitate the development of context-specific and client-focused communication skills for students who speak English as an additional language. We undertook a study which looked at the perceptions of new nursing graduates with English as an additional language (EAL) on the development of spoken language skills for the clinical workplace. As well as interviewing graduates, we spoke to four clinical tutors in order to elicit their views on the language development of EAL students in previous cohorts. This article reports on the themes which emerged from the interviews with the tutors. These include goal setting for communication, integrating students into nursing work, making assessment less stressful, and endorsing independent learning strategies. Based on their observations and on other published research we make some suggestions about ways both clinical tutors and EAL students within their teaching groups could be supported in the development of communication skills for clinical practice.