English Health Train - English Language Skills for Health Professionals
Although medical English courses that provide learners the technical language necessary to function in healthcare exist, such courses are often limited to a generic set of medical vocabulary, functions, and communication acts – primarily at a low proficiency level. The deeper, long-term needs of immigrant health professionals in the U.S. are often unrecognized in the ESL classes they take. Since the majority of these immigrants are not utilizing their education or skills in the U.S., both they and the healthcare system lose out.
In order to fill this gap, the San Francisco Welcome Back Center developed a unique, integrated curriculum that directly addresses the communication and professional needs of this population. Beyond discrete language skills, this curriculum takes into account the whole learner and incorporates meaningful content, critical thinking, and self-development as a means of preparing learners to confidently succeed in a challenging healthcare context.
The extensive English Health Train curriculum is based on a flexible, modular design that focuses on current healthcare topics, cross-cultural communication, and projects in the learners’ own healthcare fields. Very importantly, it can be used in a wide variety of ways – from longer courses to short workshops.
