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Preparing for the OET

30/5/2017

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'Can you send me resources, so I can pass the OET?'
'Can you give me some tips on how to pass the OET?'
'How can I improve my reading score?'
etc.
etc.

I have written on this topic quite a few times in the past, but today I am going to say something which may sound a bit harsh.

To pass the OET at B Level, you have to have a firm grasp on General English structures as well as a wide medical English vocabulary. YOU need to do most of the work, in developing the vocabulary you need and in practising General English grammatical structures.

What can teachers and medical English writers do for you?


In a dedicated OET prep class or online Skype class, teachers can guide you with your speaking skills. There is an opportunity to practise listening skills, by 'stopping and reviewing' each section of listening texts.

If you don't have access to a face-to-face class, think of how you can do the same yourself.
For the interview section: There are lots of podcasts about various diseases and conditions. Listen to them and make notes after each section. For example: listen to the section on the description of the condition. Stop the audio. Make notes. 
What were the key terms? E.g. Nausea and vomiting 3-7 days, occasional diarrhoea, itchy rash followed by pus-filled spots, headache -tight band across forehead etc 

You should build up a Word Bank of common symptoms, so that you can write them quickly (and spell them accurately) during the test.
HINT: familiarity with terms, including correct spelling is VERY IMPORTANT. It saves you time.


There are many symptoms which 'go together'. These may be classed as ONE POINT. 
Learn as many of these as you can , e.g.
* nausea and vomiting  (often abbreviated to N&V)
* diarrhoea and vomiting (D&V)
* coughs and colds
* aches and pains
* ups and downs  (describing feelings of depression)
* fever and runny nose

Yesterday, I had a short meeting with some people from OET. We had an interesting chat about such things as Word Counts and how to write referral letters. 
You may be interested in what was said:
Firstly  The Word Count
From David Wiltshire

He cautions against thinking in terms of counting each word. Instead, in his opinion, if you put in the necessary facts from the Case Notes and arrange the information in a logical way (that is, always keeping in mind the person you are writing to), the word count should be reached.

Secondly,,The Structure
Using a 'template' (e.g. paragraph 1 should have this, paragraph 2 should have.....) is not recommended, according to David. He suggests that this may stop candidates from thinking about the purpose of the letter and who they are writing to. Instead, he stresses the need to arrange information in as many paragraphs which are needed to convey the information.

I have to say that I agree with this on one level - it is very important not to simply 'copy and paste' information in a pre-set template. As David points out, it is very important that you think carefully about the information you are conveying. For instance, there may be an important piece of information which doesn't really fit with a 'template paragraph'. Do you leave it out or add it after the paragraph? ....Answer: if it is important, add the information to the letter.

My view on using a 'template' style approach varies a little from David's. I agree that each referral letter must 'fit' the Case Notes and be an individual letter,rather than an unchanged format. Having said this, I recognise that healthcare professionals are more likely to feel comfortable with completing a formulaic style hospital form, rather than writing a letter.
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OET Speaking Hints for All Professions

16/2/2017

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I was talking to a nurse and OET candidate yesterday about some of the aspects of the role plays which cause a few difficulties. While we were talking, I had an 'aha' moment...one of those times, when you realise something which is only obvious, when you know it. 

Let me explain. For a lot time now, I have been teaching medical English expressions, which we (nurses in Australia and the UK - my experience) use, when talking about patient care. One of them is 'encourage independence'. You will hear this expression a lot, when talking about the elderly or less able patients. The idea is that we, as nurses, physios, doctors, OTs etc, want to ensure that we don't take away a person's ability to care for themselves. It may be that they need some help (you will hear expressions like:
* 'needs prompting to eat' - this means, that you will need to say something like 'Here's your lunch, Mrs Smith. Would you like to start with the sandwich?'

* 'supervise medication, shower, toileting etc' - this means that you may need to watch the elderly person to ensure that they take their medication or have a shower

* encourage mobilisation - you will need to encourage the elderly person to walk to the toilet, for example, rather than expect to be taken in a wheelchair

* encourage independence with ADLs - you will se this expression written in care plans and clinical pathways.

I had always assumed that this was standard nursing practice all over the world, but I realised yesterday, that I was making CULTURAL assumptions. I was told that in some countries, e.g. Singapore and China, almost the opposite is the the norm, Nurses do not encourage independence, if an elderly patient is in hospital, for fear that they might have a fall. To do otherwise is viewed as promoting unsafe practice.

The conversation started me thinking about how this might affect a candidate who is doing a role play for the OET. The candidate may not understand prompts which tell them to 'encourage independence'.

Another thing we talked about yesterday was home services and home aids. Before we practised a role play, where I played the part of the caregiver (daughter) of an elderly person returning home after a knee replacement. We talked about the sort of suggestions which the nurse could make regarding assistance at home. For example:
1. bathroom modification. It's not enough to say 'I'll arrange an Occupational Therapy visit to discuss home modifications.' You need to know their names and how to describe them. It's a good idea to go on a website which sells aids for the bathroom and other rooms. For instance, the Allianz website. 
* toilet seat raise  - 'This will make it easier to sit on the toilet.'
* grab rails -'You can hold onto the grab rails to keep you steady.'
* non-slip bath mats - 'These help prevent slips in the bathroom.'

Another topic you may discuss with patients is Meals on Wheels - the service which delivers food to client's homes. The service has changed in later years, so that frozen meals can be delivered as many or as few days a week as needed.

And so on. Do some research about what is available and write out some expressions you might use during the role play.

Dementia and role plays
Do some research about what is available in the community to help people with dementia and their carers. Alzheimers Australia is a very useful website. In New Zealand, it's the Alzheimers New Zealand Charitable Trust as well as websites, such as Dementia Auckland. Research local services and support groups you can recommend to patients or their carers. 

In summary, make sure that you can demonstrate an understanding of the cultural setting as well as the language needed. Be aware of the cultural expectations of a nurse, physio, OT etc - in other words, show that you are encouraging independence.
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What Class-room Teaching Can Do for You

7/1/2017

4 Comments

 
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  Last week, I had the opportunity of teaching an OET preparation class at the Sydney College of English, where I met a group of students who are preparing to sit the OET test this month.

 It was interesting for me to be on the 'teacher' side of the desk, rather than the 'writer of materials' side of the desk. It gave me the chance to make a few observations. These are:
1) The subtests in general
It is very important to understand the structure of the tests, so you can practise and become familiar with the form your answers will take. Take the writing subtest - You need to be able to write a letter which can be clearly understood and one which makes sense. Your ideas should 'flow' in a logical way. For example:
Paragraph 1: Should state why you are writing
* to refer for ongoing care and support (community nurses)
* to refer for a review of the case and advice on further management (doctor to a specialist)
* to refer for a specialist programme after discharge, e.g. rehab ( nurse/ doctor to physio/ OT)
* to refer (or transfer) to a nursing home / hospice for care after discharge

In paragraph 1, you should also introduce the patient, giving relevant medical and social background information as well as medication information, if needed.

Paragraph 2: Explain recent treatment/ surgery in hospital. Outline any complications that occurred or reasons why the patient may need assistance or further management after discharge.

Paragraph 3: Usually the time that you ask for the help for an issue which has triggered the need for referral. For example, the patient may not be well enough after surgry to manage personal care and not have family close by to help. The patient may have a dressing to be done after discharge. The patient may need blood tests and review by the GP after discharge.

So, paragraph 3 is often the 'request' paragraph. What you are saying is 'I've explained about the patient and why s/he needs your help. Now, could you please ......?

2) The role plays in the speaking subtest.
These also follow a format, always with the awareness that the interlocutor (playing the part of the patient/carer/relative) will try to take you off track. 
Read the tasks carefully and plan your dialogue, so that you can cover all the tasks.
Identify the language functions you are going to display - explaining something, giving gentle advice/ suggesting, giving strong advice/ warning about serious consequences.

Finally, never forget that your 'patient' is supposed to be someone with no medical knowledge or limited knowledge. You need to be able to talk in terms that your 'patient' will understand. Think of some of the procedures/ blood tests/ operations, you may have to explain during the role play. Write down 3 or 4 points which you will use in your explanation and practise with a friend.

For example, a podiatrist explaining to a patient how s/he will treat an ingrown toenail which has become very painful.

You will notice, that I gave an example for a podiatrist. This is because each of the 12 professions uses the same language functions in order to communicate well. Everyone has to explain something, speak empathetically, persuade patients to do something they don't want to do, give advice, make suggestions about lifestyle changes, respond to complaints, talk about embarrassing or sensative topics etc.

This means that you can look at any role play examples and 'rewrite' them for your profession, especially if there are few resources for your profesion, e.g. optometry, radiography or podiatry.

The heading of the blog today refers to the benefit of class-room teaching. Whilst I am a great fan of Blended Learning and online courses ( I write them after all!), I think f2f teaching and learning has an important place in OET preparation. Many candidates I speak to or receive comments from, access materials which are outdated or incorrect, when they practise OET skills. Some try to learn role plays off by heart - a disaster! A good preparation class gives you and your teacher the opportunity of pinpointing where the issues are - where you are going wrong, in effect.  


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2016 OET Forum

12/12/2016

1 Comment

 
I have been back in Australia for a month now on a brief visit to arrange for my mother to retum to the UK and live with me. Like many others of my age group, I am faced with the planning of the best care I can arrange for my mother, who has enough dementia not to be able to care for herself. 

She is fortunate, in that she can come and live in a same small town as me, with her grand-daughter moving in with her as well. As I have been sorting things out, I have been looking at what is available here in terms of Aged Care and have refreshed my knowledge of the Aged Care system  in Australia (having lived in the UK for the past 7 years).

I am also refreshing my knowledge of what's been happening in the OET world. It appears that there are quite a few examples of expansion - New Zealand and India, in particular. This week, I am travelling to the Gold Coast to speak with nurse educators at the Gold Coast University Hospital about my experiences working with CALD nursing and medical students and graduate healthcare professionals in the UK. Whilst OET is sadly not accepted as a medical English test for the UK at the moment, I still draw on many of the structures, when producing materials for the UK and Europe.

I will talk about this in a future blog post, however, today I wanted to point you towards some of the videos from the recent OET Forum. One stood out for me - click on the link below to watch it. It is certainly worth watching the other videos, but Rosalind Preston's video stood out for me.

Rosalind is a Nurse Educator at the Royal Talbot Rehabilitaion Centre in Melbourne. She spoke about the 'struggle' of coming to work in Australia (and, you can insert New Zealand here too) and highlighted some of the Mental Health issues of grappling with culture and medical language acquisition.

It made me pause for a minute and remind myself of just how difficult it is to become confident with the specific language needed to perform safely in a healthcare environment. Rosalind mentioned Tuckman's stages of group development to illustrate what happens, when a new nurse (any healthcare worker) arrives at the centre (read: a new ward). They start a process of trying to fit into a new team structure, whilst at the same time realising that the English language skills they thought were sufficient, are not (after all, they'd passed a general English test).

Much food for thought. I look forward to sharing experiences with the Nurse Educators in my old 'stomping ground' (I used to teach at the Gold Coast TAFE in the 2000s).


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Things are Happening!

7/12/2016

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This year has been a very difficult for me, so I hope you will forgive me for not posting in my blog or producing new materials. I have made a start now to refresh this website and put up some small study packages in the Store for you. 

Many people ask for help with the Reading sub-test, so you will be pleased to see a new pdf e-book, which is available on this website or on Lulu. Both are instant downloads - no more emailing me and waiting for the download!

I am currently in Australia to arrange for my mother to return to the UK to live with me. While I am here, I have had some opportunities to speak to old colleagues and new friends in the medical English area. 

I will be speaking at my former university (Griffith University) on the Gold Coast later this month. I am looking forward to sharing ideas and experiences of teaching and writing for CALD students and nurses. 

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Build Your Medical English Vocabulary

26/7/2016

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Those of you who read my blog and/or look at the OET Prep facebook page will notice that I often advise candidates to improve their general English and medical English vocabulary as a means of improving their OET scores.

In the Writing Sub-test, you are often expected to take facts from the Case Notes and express them in your own words, when you write the referral letter. 

In the Reading Sub-test, you may have to do the same in the completion activity as well as the Multiple Choice activity. 

It's a good idea to develop lists of vocabulary around a topic, so that you can gather as many similar terms as possible (remember that English has a large number of synonyms - different words with the same meaning).

Take a look under the Writing hints tab of this website and try the latest Quizlet activity. The topic is 'Describing the Patient's Condition'. You will find a list of words which describe changes in the condition of a patient. 

Most of the words can be used in the general English as well as medical English senses. 



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Why Can’t I pass the Reading Sub-test?

18/7/2016

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Preparing for the Reading Sub-test

17/7/2016

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Recently, I seem to be receiving a lot of inquiries about the Reading sub-test.

How do I prepare for it?

Can you give me some hints?

How can I improve my score?

I have put up some suggestions on the facebook page (OET Preparation Hints), but I think it may help to make this blog post exclusively about the Reading sub-test.

The first thing to remember is that the Reading sub-test is about understanding medical texts, but also about understanding how ANY text holds itself together. Many candidates who sit for a medical English test forget that they still need to understand the following:

* the use of several different words which mean the same thing. I am talking about synonyms (words which have a similar meaning). English is a difficult language in this regard, as there may be several ways to say the same thing. There is a historical reason for this...most of you won't be interested in this, just in learning how to deal with the problem!


My hint: Keep a notebook with you, as you read a text. Try to make a note of 10 new words in the text and check to see, if there are synonyms for each word. For example, 'excise' can also be expressed as 'cut out', 'remove tissue' and 'chop out'.... or 'make an incision'.As you can see, 'excise' is a formal word, 'cut out' is a phrasal verb and more informal and 'chop out' is very informal (slang). 'To make an excision' uses the noun form of 'excise'.

You will find when answering the Reading comprehension questions and completing the summary text, that you may have to use a similar term to the term used in the text. Take our example above:

In the text: 'Surgeons are careful to excise a large amount of tissue to ensure that all or most of the cancerous lesion is removed.' 

In the summary: 'The wide surgical (1) (excision, cut)  aims to (2) (cut out, remove) most of the malignancy.'

Notice that in both (1) and (2), there are two possible answers. Don't worry which one you write. As long as your answer fits into the sentence, you can use either.

Look at a different summary:'The wide surgical (1) (excision, cut)  aims to (2) (cut) out most of the malignancy.'
In this case, you can only use 'cut' for (2), because it matches with 'out'. You couldn't put 'remove', because it would not make sense ((2) remove out most of the malignancy.' - NO)

Notice how the summary text uses a different expression for:
1) 'Surgeons are careful to excise a large amount of tissue..' becomes 'The wide surgical excision or cut'


​2) 'cancerous lesion' becomes 'malignancy' in the summary.

How can you prepare for this?
1) make a list of the most common verbs used in medical texts:
Surgery: incision, excise, reduce (a tumour), graft, insert, to suture (stitch a wound) etc
Medical: diagnose, treat, manage etc
Specialty areas: research areas such as podiatry, dentistry, radiography etc.

2) Find synonyms for the terms

Finally, keep in mind the structure of the Reading sub-test. Remember that you will have to read several short texts about the same general topic. As you read the texts, think about them. Are they saying the same thing? Are the texts giving conflicting information?
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OET for Pharmacy

7/6/2016

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Some of you may be aware that for most of 2015 and into the early part of 2016, I was busy writing online courses for nurses and nursing assistants (HCAs and carers) and doctors. I have just started adding to my OET prep books and materials and hope to add some prep books for some of the other professions of the OET. 

The next speaking sub-test prep book will be for Pharmacy and will be available by mid-June. The book contains some role plays around a pharmacy topic, e.g. advising a patient about a new medication (statin), explaining brand name and a generic name drugs to reassure a patient that her prescription is correct and advising on acne treatment. As you can see, these topics are also relevant for the medical and nursing sub-test.

I know that it is difficult for those of you attempting the OET for professions other than medical and nursing, as there is not as much specific material out there for you. My advice is to 'pick and choose' over the materials for doctors and nurses and imagine how they could be adapted for your profession.  For instance:

Physiotherapy:
you explain exercises and treatments
you advise and warn, e.g. about exercise programmes
you persuade patients to continue with physio treatments
you recommend aids, e.g. wrist brace
you give instructions, e.g. breathing exercises 

Make sure that you think about the language structures you need to be able to use for your role plays. You will find that these structures are common to all the tests. Because of this, you can make use of courses / books for other medical professions.

What you will need to do:
Make your own glossary of terms which are specific to your profession. For example, physiotherapists use the term 'range of movement' more frequently than, say, a dentist.

Make a glossary of the equipment and devices you commonly use in your work, e.g. CPM machine. Practise the pronunciation of these terms and be able to explain the equipment simply to a patient. This will help when you do a role play.  Keep explanations simple, e.g.
I'm going to teach you some exercises which will help with muscle strength. It will make it easier for you to walk around without assistance.

Remember: this is a language test - show you are able to communicate appropriately with a patient.

Pharmacy candidates - please check out the three new YouTube videos I have made. The transcripts and associated activities will be available in a book to be published next week.
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December 2015 - Referral Letters

21/12/2015

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I seem to be receiving a lot of emails lately, asking for help with the writing subtest. You can find a video I made today with some hints under the tab 'Hints for the OET'. Many people ask, if they can send an example of their writing for me to correct. I have included a section for 'correct one of my letters' at the end of the other writing 'lessons' on this website. There is also some information about a short online course which I have written to help candidates improve their writing skills.

Referral letters tend to contain the same sorts of phrases - try to learn these. Examples are:
independent with his personal care
requires assistance with
mobile with a walking frame / walking stick
has a past history of
poorly controlled diabetes
not compliant with treatment / medication
needs reminding / prompting 
has a tendency to wander / become aggressive/ become tearful
and many more.

Remember that the word limit only allows you to write 3 or 4 sentences in each paragraph.

Practise handwriting a paragraph of writing. Then, count how many words, on average, you write per line. This will give you an idea of how long 180-200 words is, in your handwriting.
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    I am a medical English author of books and online courses. I have a particular interest in  OET preparation and am an OET premium preparation provider with my colleagues at Specialist Language Courses. I am based in the UK.

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