Speaking
OET Speaking (Nursing) is about 20 minutes: two role plays, each with two to three minutes' preparation and about five minutes of interaction. The interlocutor plays a patient, relative, carer or colleague; assessors rate both your language and your clinical communication.
What is assessed
Linguistic criteria: intelligibility, fluency, appropriateness of language, and resources of grammar and expression. Clinical criteria cover relationship building, information gathering, information giving and handling the conversation. The role-play card gives a scenario and bullet prompts - these are the tasks to achieve, not a script to recite.
A reliable sequence
- Introduce yourself and your role, confirm the patient's identity, and set the agenda.
- Explore before explaining: open questions, then the patient's ideas, concerns and expectations.
- Explain in short chunks, in plain language, checking understanding at each step.
- Close with a summary, safety-netting and next steps.
Worked example
Card: Mr Ahmed, day 3 after bowel surgery, is refusing to mobilise, saying "it hurts too much." Tasks: explore his concerns; explain why early mobilisation matters; agree a plan. The trap is starting with the benefits of mobilising. Instead: "Tell me what happens when you try to move." He says the pain is worst on standing. Reflect that back, then negotiate analgesia 30 minutes before the attempt, and explain the specific risks - chest infection, clot, slower bowel recovery - in plain terms. Then check: "What would make you willing to try once?" That covers all three bullets through conversation rather than announcement.
Traps
- Marching through bullet points as a checklist.
- Ignoring emotional cues ("I'm frightened") in order to finish the information.
- Unexplained jargon: "anticoagulate", "NG tube", "mobilise".
- Dominating the talk; the patient should speak a comparable amount.
- No comprehension check - "Does that make sense?" is weaker than "What will you do if the pain returns tonight?"