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Table 2 Verbatim statements for the theme “Placement planning and preparation”

From: Supporting culturally and linguistically diverse students during clinical placement: strategies from both sides of the table

Sub-theme

CALD Student challenges

Supervisor challenges

Supportive strategies

Supervisor training for CALD student supervision

I’ve talked to one supervisor once…, and I said ‘What kind of training did you get from the Uni?’. And she said ‘Nothing… we didn’t get any training, the Uni just send us to here to supervise you guys’. (Student group 2)

I don’t think that they give probably enough support to their educators when you have a large group of students with different cultures” (Supervisor group 2)

CALD student-focused supervisor training:

It would be nice maybe if the unis gave more time in teaching about international students to the facilitators, and even if they did a couple of workshops a year to the staff…(Supervisor group 1)

   

I was thinking the Uni can give some …training to the clinical supervisor, before they supervise us…and …[teach them about] cultural things …, just let them know we have some language difficulties… I guess that would be great. (Student group 2)

Timely student preparation and orientation

…[for] first year students…[there was] a preparation for placement …, and they only talk about like ‘Be active in your placements… don’t be quiet’ and that’s it. (Student Group 2)

 

Appropriate placement preparation:

I think it [CALD placement preparation] really has to… make sure that it actually runs throughout [the course]… and not… only on the third year when we’re going on placement then … realize the importance … I think it’s a bit too late in a way. (Student group 3)

 

You do not know the expectation of… placement. Because [in] first year they had CALD [placement preparation sessions], we went for it… … we did not see the relevance of it at the time … (Student group 3)

 

Pre-placement identification of higher risk CALD students:

Early identification would be the key because if they do need extra time, extra anything, identifying earlier gives them more time, because I often find by the time they hit us they’ve only got their you know 6 weeks or whatever it is to reach competency and you can’t address everything. (Supervisor group 1)

Seeking more allocation of time for CALD students on placement

I find doing a placement… there’s issue with time management because of the workload. And there’s so much to do but… yet there’s so little time. So… I don’t know if I want more breaks, or… more time to do it. (Student group 3)

For me I try to treat them with the same expectations because they are going through the same course and potentially they are going to be applying for the same jobs, so trying to get them to the same standard. But having said that, you do realize when somebody’s struggling with the language or just generally cultural things, I guess we do try to make allowances by perhaps trying to dedicate a little more time than we might otherwise. But I typically expect the same from all students…(Supervisor group 1)