Good Practice in Australian Physiotherapy Education

A tutorial program has been developed to assist Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) students to communicate knowledge and skills being developed during Year 1 of their coursework in the Undergraduate Physiotherapy Program at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, The University of Queensland
Staff who are part of the teaching team for these students offer a series of small group tutorial sessions related to each topic area of a professional course whereby the student is facilitated to communicate the knowledge and skills being gained. The topic areas are developed in conjunction with the course coordinator and NESB students are invited to participate in the program. Students prepare for the topic areas and are asked to rate their confidence to communicate their knowledge and skills prior to and following the series of tutorials. The program encourages the student to articulate their knowledge, demonstrating through oral, manual and written formats their capacity to understand and integrate information and skills required for their practice as physiotherapists
 
The program was developed to address the rote learning issues more prevalent in NESB students who struggled but manage to pass the pre-clinical years although supplementary exams were prevalent in this student group with tutorials frequently required to prepared for the supplementary exam. Thus knowledge were being acquired but the learning outcomes were limited as it became evident in clinical practice that this group of students frequently found it difficult to demonstrate the application and integration of knowledge and skills required during their clinical practice. Such students were often experiencing recurrent failure in their clinical placements. This prompted the need to change the way these students were being taught - there was a need to develop the knowing / thinking / reasoning / application and reflection cycle in a more effective way with these students which was generally successfully being acquired by students whose primary language was English. Accordingly, all domestic and international students from a NESB were invited to participate in a tutorial program that has now been running for 3 years. Students have been more successful in their pre-clinical years and are being closely monitored for their ability to manage when on clinical placement.
The students report increased confidence in their oral and written communications and although would enjoy a formal tutorial program to continue in each year, following year 1 they are supported by a mentoring program (see Attachment 1) and in preparation for clinical practice, participate in a 4-week pre-clinical program to foster an understanding of communication in the Australian Heath Context (see Attachment 2).