 Hi, I'm with Ross Wright, author of OET Skills Builder from Express Publishing and a freelance teacher and course book writer specializing in medical English, as well as being a trustee of IOTF. So plenty to keep you busy there. I wanted to ask you about how your overall approach in this past year and how that has affected the work you've been doing for teachers? Yeah, well at Express Publishing we launched the OET Skills Builder that you mentioned a couple of years ago now or maybe about a year ago and really that was in response to the demand from trainers and students for the OET. I don't know if you are familiar with OET? Yeah, I am, I know that it is being offered in Ireland and but tell me more about it because I think it's useful for people to have just a brief introduction. Sure, sure, yeah. So OET is the Occupational English Test and it's a test of English communication skills but in healthcare setting. So, you know, sort of that there are four papers so not dissimilar from other tests that people know but that's kind of where the similarity ends if you're comparing with IELTS or TOEFL or whatever. As I say, everything is set in a healthcare setting and the idea is is that you test healthcare professionals in 12 different areas of healthcare so that could be nursing, medicine obviously but also dentistry, podiatry and my favourite which is veterinary surgery which I would love to get into myself, I've not had the chance yet but I will hopefully. And as I say four papers I specialised in my particular book so our course has two books and I specialised in the writing and speaking sections of the test and my colleague Tom Fasnidge wrote the other book in the series which deals with the writing and listening. So writing and listening in format is similar to IELTS in the same, you know, similar sort of style of questions but as I say everything is in a healthcare setting and then with the writing and speaking it's very much orientated towards the specific needs of a particular healthcare professional so the test for nurses for example you'd have a role play what's specific for nurses and same with the writing. With the writing is generally a letter as opposed to something quite random that you might get in the IELTS for example so it might be a letter of discharge for example or a letter of transfer transferring a patient from one healthcare setting to another healthcare setting and that's sort of in general what the OET is about and as I say so you know in response to the needs of trainers this is what Express Publishing set about a couple of years ago and then the book was launched as I say last year and obviously healthcare has been at the forefront of everybody's mind in the last year the last two years or so so it's very pertinent in fact especially with you know with the need to hire increasingly more and more nurses whether that be in the UK or in Ireland in particular nurses but also doctors as well where both countries are heavily reliant on overseas healthcare professionals and so you know hospitals are continuously hiring from abroad but they need to obviously be sure that those nurses those doctors that they're hiring do have the level of English necessary in order to in order to take them on board and OET is a test that is recognised by and I'm just going to check my notes here by the Ireland by Ireland's medical council so that's for doctors and the nursing and medwifery board of Ireland okay so that's that's that's that's the relevance of the course book of course books rather there's two of them so yeah yeah and I think it's really important to have especially in those professions to be checking somebody's English on in a practical context as opposed to the kind of very generic context that they would get in another in another exam exactly exactly I mean it's all about patient not only about the patient and their diagnosis their prognosis their recovery but it's also about patient safety as well so it's ensuring that not only is there a good nurse patient a doctor patient rapport and to take them through that patient journey that patient experience but it's also ensuring that that it's done in a safe manner and communication skills are vital to that and so are there any kind of specific things that you would point to in the way that it's organised or put together to help teachers and schools kind of prepare the candidates adequately yeah yeah of course so the course books themselves in within you know within the the skills builder series are actually the only ones that exist for the moment um well I said no I am lying there is another one but I can't mention it's a different publisher but there are very few actual course books that you can use in the classroom there's a lot of self-study materials available but not much that the teachers can go in and use in the classroom whether that be online or face to face and so that's where our premise started in fact as opposed to just offering you know sort of tests that people can take we really wanted to help teachers train their candidates by you know by producing course books and so that was our premise that was our starting block but obviously we realise as well that there's an awful lot of teachers and trainers out there who have never worked in medical english you've never worked with healthcare professionals and are not really sure how to go about it so um if teachers are interested they can go on to the express website and there is um what we call teachers corner where they can go on and and find out more about the courses but also there's a little video for each of the two course books to explain not only the book but also the kind of rationale behind um what the test is is testing um so for example the the the the concept of um a patient patient-centered care is really key to understanding the role play and the criteria by which the students are um tested against so if you haven't understood what patient-centered care is then it's difficult for you then to train your candidates in order to be successful in the role play so in the little videos we give um trainers some tips and hints and we try to explain about the different criteria against which um their students will be marked so if that's in the reading or the listening skills or in in in my case in the reading and the speaking skills um so there's that so there's the course books there's um the uh the little videos and we also um have the course books also now um recreated as digi books the only problem is i'm not an expert in digi books so how that actually works um people have to go onto the website so there's a lot of um move towards kind of giving a digital option uh in course books so i'm sure people will will be familiar with the yes but i'm sure anybody watching is more familiar with that than i am so yeah but obviously with the move towards you know um increasingly more and more you know delivery of courses online um and also if you're you know if you're working with with students internationally you know i work with a lot of um international doctors who before they arrive in the in um in my case in the uk or um or it could be an island so um you know the need to be able to to deliver courses online is is just yeah how do the candidates feel about the process of uh training to to do this their OET and and then actually doing it do they find it a satisfying experience do they enjoy it if you can say that about an exam well actually actually they they they some of them do enjoy it i think i get the impression but they they they generally find it very beneficial because it's um it it's totally related to their field so as opposed to being sort of random as we mentioned earlier with something like high else where you could be asked any number of questions and it's very it it's difficult to prepare yourself for for the content whereas with um OET they already know the content um and and you know we have to remind them sometimes that it is a test of English and not a test of their clinical skills um and that is that is slightly different um and i know some some trainers struggle a little bit with that um that sort of insisting that it is a test of English and um and so you do have to train your students um to accept that for the beginning at the beginning as a concept and then um and then especially for the writing and speaking to actually give them strategies necessary to to overcome that in a way it's um it's a little bit different from from the tests but it does prepare them for the workplace so if they're coming to work in Ireland for example it really will prepare them in terms of the types of documents that they'll be coming um they'll need to be familiar with um the approach as I said earlier in terms of the the patient-centred approach which is not something that is um necessarily known throughout the world um before there would be a um a more traditional approach in used in in in Ireland for example where the the doctor is much more dominant in the role and the and the patient is very passive um and and that that sort of traditional model is sometimes used still in other countries so they need to be prepared for the workplace as and at the same time um do do well in the test um and so it's a sort of a dual purpose so it really is pure ESP as a test it really is English for specific purposes um and and and and and and preparing them for for the workplace as well does that make sense yes so the skills and the skills that we're we're talking about are professional skills as much as they are um English language skills exactly exactly I mean it's essentially um professional skills um but you know there's a lot of things involved in especially in the um in the OET speaking that help us in daily life as well because um you're going to be uh well the candidates are going to be judged on various aspects of their communication skills so empathy reassurance um and and and this kind of thing which are actually useful in in daily life as well um so how how to express empathy how to demonstrate that you're reassuring and that you're using active listening skills and and those are those are skills that are also useful and transferable into daily life as well yeah absolutely like kind of us um so for more information uh you mentioned the website a couple of times can you spell out the website for me there what is the which website are you directing us towards or where shall we look yes it's the um general website for express publishing so www.expresspublishing.co.uk okay great um and so my final question is because we're we're doing this in the context of the ELT Ireland annual conference this uh this February which we're glad to see back in person uh again why do express publishing support the ELT conference every year well I think you know um my understanding is that you know this is one of the major if not the major conference in Ireland and um and express publishing really feel that being part of this is is um is very key to um obviously to their um from from their side as a as a as a publisher but in really a means of meeting um trainers and um and giving having the chance to exchange with them find out their needs try and respond to to to their needs as far as as far as possible and really reaching out to to trainers um and I think you know this is this is a fantastic opportunity and obviously being face to face for the first time in a couple of years um um you know express is publishing is is really keen to participate in any way that it can that's great so we look forward to seeing them there um thanks very much for your time today uh Rod that was great to hear all about the ELT skills builder and what you've been working on thank you very much my pleasure