Monthly Archives: March 2014

A “Proactive” Bunch by Liza Choi

proactive_bunchWhat a great start to a new academic year of 2013-2014!

It seems that each generation of students have their defining character. I would describe this group of new EAL students from the year 2013/14 academic year as a “proactive” bunch. Both individually and as a group, this amazing set of students made extra effort to step forward to express their desire to proactively seek support in the areas of academics, cultural exchange, psychosocial stressors, understanding Canadian culture and language, and our Canadian nursing milieu.

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The EAL Mentoring Program: a Rewarding Experience by Lisa Dalgarno

The EAL (English as an additional language) mentorship program coordinated by Liza Choi is an amazing program. I am a third year student mentoring a first year student and I have to admit, I love it. We (my mentee and I) meet once a week for roughly an hour. We talk about various subjects and they are not always school or nursing related. Some of the things that are common for us to discuss are time management skill, studying methods, resources available through the school, and various other random topics. I have found that this program not only benefits the person I am mentoring, but myself as well. My mentee and I have formed a friendship through the EAL Mentoring Program.

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How the EAL Mentoring Program has Helped Me by Meng Lin Ma

march_mentoringBecause English is my second language, writing papers in English is extremely difficult for me. The way I organize words and sentences is very different from English native speakers therefore my sentences always sound strange and are difficult to read. I have been struggling with writing for the past two years. Last year, I went to the EAL Nursing Support Group and told them about my worries and difficulty with writing papers. Liza introduced a peer mentor, who is also a third year nursing student, to help me with improving my writing clarity and to correct my grammar. I feel it is very reassuring to have someone to read through my paper ahead of time, identifying my grammatical mistakes and flow of sentences in my paper.

Everything works very well in the EAL Nursing Support Group. However, I think I am not the only student who needs help in writing papers. There are still a lot of English as a second language students who want and need help with their papers. However, there might not be enough peer mentors to support all the students who need help. Therefore, I think it would be better if more students were willing to join the EAL Nursing Support Group to become a peer mentor to help those students who need help with their studies and papers.

 

Benefits of the Peer Mentor Program by Mengyu Song

EAL Nursing Support Group

The English As An Additional Language (EAL) nursing support group was initially established in 2009 to support the nursing students who has English as their second or additional language. Through the years, the EAL support group has organized many programs and workshops to help this group of students. The literature has shown that the requirements of EAL nursing students are multifactorial and the School of Nursing and Midwifery of Mount Royal University continues to discover and advance new activities centered around the needs of this group. In this article, I would like to share my experience in EAL support group.

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