Nursing Researchers + ESL Instructors = A Needed Professional Partnership

Abstract

English language educators situated in Thai health care environments are challenged
to provide to their students and colleagues optimal learning opportunities which sharpen
their English language abilities. Language learners’ needs assessment is a vital tool for
understanding and appreciating the obstacles encountered by all language learners. When
one addresses the language learners’ language receptivity needs of Thai in-service nurses,
there are many available sources of information from which to glean. An underutilized,
overlooked, but robust information pipeline is the research conducted in a Thai context by
nurse researchers concerning public hospital work environments. Therefore, this article will
offer a synthesis of selected observations generated by Thai nursing researchers provided
for the express purpose of identifying relevant instructional implications for the EFL
classroom.