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MATC ESL/CNA Training class

Skills Translation

by Jonathan Gramling

Nigora Fayzieva had a good career in her native Uzbekistan. She had been a mouth, throat and ear surgeon for 17 years who counted the minister of justice, Buritosh Mustafaev, as one of her clients. "In my country, I held a very important position," Fayzieva said during an interview with The Madison Times at the MATC downtown campus. "I worked in a very large medical hospital. I had many patients. But my husband chose to come to America, and so, I came with him." Fayzieva didn't know that her skills wouldn't automatically trnslate to the American medical workplace.

Mohamed Ahmed also immigrated to America. Ahmed was a social studies teacher of geography in Somalia before coming to the U.S. several years ago. He initially settled in the Twin Cities area where he became a cell phone technician. But he missed the people-to-people contact he had as a teacher. So, he became a caregiver After two years, he was ready to take it to another level.

What Fayzieva and Ahmed have in common is a desire to get ahead in the medical/care giving field and to learn the English language. These skills go hand in hand. And so last January, they both enrolled in a new course at MATC, the ESL/Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training program. This 11-week course offered three weeks in intensive English session, the students entered the traditional 8-week CNA course.

"We have combined an initial step where all of these students took the traditional CNA class with every other CNA student," explained Karen Johnson Kretschmann, the MATC training liaison for the class. "But they then had that second component to learn the English acquisition skills, text analysis skills, and test taking skills and to develop a general comfort level with communication because all of health care involves working with people. This was the first step. It is a jumping off spot."

For Fayzieva, it will perhaps be a long journey. She would love to become a surgeon again. As she talks, she emanates a certain level of frustration because she knows she can do the work, but the credentials simply don't translate. "I have experience, but it is in Russian methodology," Fayzieva emphasized. "I need to know step by step. Now I need to take a higher-level class. I'm not sure what my goals are or whether or not I can become a doctor in America. Right now, I am 42 years old. Maybe it's too late for me to become a doctor in this country, but I want to work in health care because I have experience. It's very easy for me to work with these people. I need to improve my English. I think my experience can be very helpful for American people. I have a wealth of experience and I need to work."

While one may think that health care practices could be vastly different on opposite ends of the globe, Fayzieva insists that it is all relatively the same. "All people need care and it's the same care in Uzbekistan and America," She said. "My instructor told me to go into intensive care. It was very interesting, but not hard for me. The technology is the same because our governments work together in health care programs."

"Many people asked me why I took a CNA class because they felt I was overqualified," Fayzieva continued. "I told them I needed to know all about American health care. I need to improve my English and take the next class."

According to Kretschmann, many in the class are in a similar situation. Their skills are just lost in the translation. "The challenge that we have is we know that folks like Nigora and Julieta who was a nurse and Dahlia and Monica have the skills, phenomenal people skills and technical skills," Kretschmann said. "However, here in the U.S., they need to demonstrate that by attaining a license. That license is both through course work and taking a state licensing test. Thus, you need the support to gain the English acquisition skills to make it through that academic component, which is integral to the degree, but is really separate from the technical skills. That's what we have done here."

For Ahmed, the CNA program was the beginning of the career he was seeking. For Fayzieva, it was a stepping-stone to regaining the career she had lost. Together, they took a step to the next level of their American dream.