CELBAN Preparation Program Curriculum Guidelines

The CELBAN Centre offers a set of curriculum guidelines that can be used by educators and institutions to support the development of CELBAN test preparation programs. These guidelines follow a CELBAN approach to test washback: that developing foundational language skills that are directly associated with daily nursing communication will support IENs’ professional registration journey.

The curriculum guidelines provide a framework to support organizations that aim to develop a nursing communication program that will help IENs prepare for CELBAN, while also orienting them to the language and communication demands of the nursing profession in Canada. The materials outline aspects of language development as well as socio-cultural aspects of communication, with a particular emphasis on nursing communication competencies. The intent of the guidelines is to help organizations design a program that develop the cultural communication skills IENs need to communicate effectively in the profession.

What’s Included?

The curriculum guidelines offer critical information to include in a CELBAN test preparation program including:

• Guiding principles for test preparation programs
• Details on the structure of CELBAN
• Suggested approaches for program development
• Themes and language focus areas to include
• Suggested approaches to including pragmatics and communication strategies
• Recommendations on how to approach assessment and feedback
• A list of tools and resources currently available for CELBAN test preparation
• Suggested syllabus elements for the four skills, including learning outcomes and task suggestions

The guidelines were structured with careful consideration of authentic materials and themes related to nursing and health care in general to encourage programming that anchors language learning tasks in real world interactions. The curriculum guidelines draw extensively from the Canadian Language Benchmarks (the scale of language proficiency referenced by CELBAN criteria), to include the different aspects of communicative competence: grammatical, strategic, socio-cultural, and discourse competence.

The objective of the curriculum guidelines and by association, any preparation program, is to provide IENs with targeted language learning opportunities which will support their performance on CELBAN, and their journey into nursing practice in Canada.

Who Can Use the CELBAN Curriculum Guidelines?

The CELBAN Curriculum Guidelines are intended for use by English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum developers and instructors to inform the development of a CELBAN preparation program. The materials presume a background in applied linguistics and TESL. It is intended for use by not-for-profit organizations, publicly funded post-secondary institutions and school boards who have demonstrated a history and commitment working with internationally educated health professionals to help them advance their occupation-specific language training.

CELBAN Preparation Educator Qualifications

Organizations that are developing CELBAN related materials and programming are encouraged to consider staff credentials and training appropriate to the program purpose. CELBAN is a high stakes, credentialing assessment tool. It is fundamentally a language proficiency assessment based on the Canadian Language Benchmarks. Additionally, it is a specific purpose language assessment, with a focus on language skills for nursing practice. It is highly recommended that educational institutes work with professional language instructors and curricular specialists be recruited for design, development and delivery of CELBAN Preparation programs.

To inquire about the CELBAN Curriculum Guidelines, please contact The CELBAN Centre at celban@tsin.ca.