An Examination of the Acceptability of OET to the Potential Nurses From College of Nursing, Kuantan, Malaysia

Abstract

The growth of culturally and linguistically diverse population in Malaysia has led to many efforts to encourage or ensure that health care systems respond to the distinct needs of culturally and linguistically different patients by becoming “culturally competent”. So the implementation of OET will play an increasingly expedient role both in medication and in medical tourism. Occupational English Test is an English language proficiency test for health practitioners intending to check whether health practitioners have sufficient knowledge of English in job-related context. It is designed by Professor Tim Mc Namara under contact with Australian Federal Government and is used by Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. This study using a case study method intends to know the acceptability of OET in Malaysia. The objectives of this study are to assess Malaysian nurses’ performance in the existing OET writing test and to know their attitude towards the test. The cases are 31 nursing students from a reputed nursing college in Kuantan, Malaysia. The researcher administers some sample OET writing test questions on the cases at first so that they can have a clear idea about OET and after the test , she interviews 5 cases individually to know their view in detail. The researcher analyzes the result manually. From the test and especially from the interviews, it comes out that OET is very much acceptable to the nurses and though most them are not good in grammar, their performance in test is satisfactory on average because the task is associated with their job.