Recent immigrants land jobs as health care aides with help from Language Training Centre
Learning the language is part of every profession, with every new job featuring its own distinct jargon that takes time to absorb and acquire.
That process presents an even bigger challenge when English isn’t your first language.
To obtain job-specific vocabulary, as well as boost their English proficiency in general, recent immigrants Lei Wang and Balwinder Kaur Loomba, from China and India respectively, both studied at Red River College’s Language Training Centre (LTC) in the English for Health Care Aides (now called Communication for Health Professions) program. Both women moved on to RRC’s Health Care Aide program, graduating in January.
In February, both Wang and Loomba found positions as health care aides at St. Boniface Hospital.
“I remember Mona (Abu-Ghoush, an LTC instructor) gave us lots of articles about the healthcare field,” says Wang (shown above, at right) of the English for Health Care Aides program.
“She gave us different vocabulary. She wants us to get familiar with the sound. A lot of healthcare language comes from Latin, and she found lots of difficult words for us. I like that. When I take my Health Care Aide program, it does help. When I see the thick book, I didn’t get scared.”
In addition to the standard textbook/whiteboard teaching method, English for Health Care Aides also includes guest speakers, workshops, field trips and volunteer work experience. Wang says that hands-on approach to learning English was beneficial.
“We did lots of presentations to better communicate,” says Wang, who came to Canada in 2011. “We have the knowledge, but it’s quite scary to talk to people and communicate with each other. Every week we had presentations and all those presentations were related to health. It’s quite useful.” Read More →