OET preparation lessons for nurses are aimed at achieving a B Grade or at least a score of 350  in each of the four skills of Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. A minimum score of 350 is required for Nursing Registration in New Zealand if your first language is not English. This is the equivalent of an IELTS band score 7.0 in each of the four English language skills. ​

​

An advantage of OET for nurses compared to an IELTS course is that the vocabulary, speaking role plays, listening and reading modules, and writing tasks are all based on situations you'll encounter in your occupation as a nurse. Another advantage is that you can sit the four exams separately and only have to resit individual exams if you don't achieve 350 points in that specific skill. With IELTS you need to resit the entire exam again if you don't achieve 7.0 in one of the skills.

​

OET preparation lessons can therefore be focused on the one or two skills you still require to pass if you have already passed two or three of the skill exams.

​

If you're starting out studying OET for nurses, I recommend concentrating on the Reading and Writing modules first and then sitting the exams for Reading and Writing. After passing (B Grade or better) these two (Reading and Writing), we can then focus on Listening and Speaking.  This may not suit all students, so we would of course determine the best approach at the start of the lessons based on your relative abilities in each skill and the time available for OET study.

​

Although a course of lessons utilizes specific OET materials and resources, I often supplement the teaching with other materials depending on the student's needs. This can include exercises for improving the student's spoken fluency, or speed reading materials aimed at improving skimming, scanning and detailed reading skills.

​

The number of lessons required will depend on the student's overall English level, but, as a rule of thumb, I recommend 40 hours of lessons for a student who already has a good intermediate level of English (5.5 to 6.0 IELTS equivalent). Lessons are ideally 2 hours long for maximum learning efficiency, but 90 minutes also works well for many students. The best way of studying OET is face to face, although online lessons are also possible.