It was like a mirror : a reflection on filmed role play simulation

“What brings you here today?” is a familiar question in a health clinic in Canada, but it may not be one that comes immediately to the mind of an internationally educated health professional. The way health professionals communicate with patients in their cultures can sound overly direct in Canadian clinics. “Why are you here?” would be typically asked to patients in settings such as the Ukraine and Egypt. A stepping stone that supports the understanding of linguistic appropriacy and the Canadian health care context is offered at the Languages Institute of Mount Royal University, Calgary. The Communication Skills for Health Professionals (CSHP) project teaches language and communication skills through a performance based approach. Our scholarship of teaching and learning inquiry explored how students in this project value filmed role play simulations as a learning tool for developing communication skills and knowledge. This article describes the instructional context of our study, its methodology, four key findings and implications for the role of the English language instructor, for student learning and for program implementation. The impact of filmed role play simulation on learning, acculturation into the Canadian health care context, professional identity formation, and the integration of communication skills within various contexts are discussed.