Teaching Oral Communication Skills to Healthcare Personnel Using Communicative Language Teaching Technique

Abstract

Effective communication among healthcare providers is the key to success in any healthcare system.  The importance of communication skills has long been established in the medical and nursing education.  Although such skills are taught in medical and nursing undergraduate curriculum around the world, but less attention is being paid towards the communication skills of healthcare personnel in Pakistan.  The primary focus of this study is to determine whether the communicative language teaching (CLT) technique had an effect on oral English communication skills of nursing students. This quasi-experimental study was conducted at undergraduate nursing students. Purposive sampling was employed. A pre-test, based on role-plays, was conducted on the baseline status of students followed by a sixteen-hour course.  The same role-play scenarios were given as a post-test. Participants were assessed through rubrics adapted using proficiency descriptor and Cambridge English assessment scale.  The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was employed to compare scores obtained from pre-test and post-test.  The result revealed that the Communication language teaching technique had a significant effect on the oral English communication skills of nursing students.  The study suggested that activities conducted within the classroom should have a greater impact and involve real life communication in order to facilitate learning and proficiency in oral communication skills of students.