Updated 2021

The following are questions answered by CELBANPrep creator Kim, during a recent interview.

Q. How long did it take to create CELBANPrep 2018/2020?

A.   CELBANPrep 2018/2020 is in it’s eighth version. With technology changing each year, new versions were created. Understanding that CELBANPrep was created two years after YouTube came online, long before smart phones and tablets, gives you an idea of how much technology has progressed. With each version, hundreds of hours were poured into the development of CELBANPrep. Every year a new version was released. Every year enhanced technology was added. Every year.

It took several months, to create CELBANPrep 2018/2020. In fact CELBANPrep 2018 was inspired by the following message:

[Continuing] to guide and help others in reaching their dreams.

At first it seemed as though the videos would have to be uploaded to YouTube and accessed separately from the books on Amazon. But then when I discovered, around Christmas time, that I could create textbooks with embedded videos: I was elated. Finally my dreams of CELBANPrep were being realized! Finally technology had caught up to the vision I held from the very beginning!

2021 Update

Where it seemed like technology was catching up, back when I made the 8th version of CELBANPrep, technical problems occured. IENs using Apple products (iPhones and iPads) to access the textbooks embedded with the videos could not access the devices. So, I had to create the 9th version, with a membership to access the videos, a 10th version with the videos available on the website, and now an 11th version: the CELBANPrep University app: available for both Android and Apple. 

Q. Why is the required benchmark for the CELBAN so high?

A. Once you pass the CELBAN you may be required to take university courses; to enter university you MUST have university level English. The level of English required to enter Canada (for immigration purposes) is a conversational level – the level that allows you to manage every day life. But to be in a university level class you must have a University level of English. Otherwise you would do exceptionally poorly: wasting valuable time, money, energy and other resources. The benchmark you are required to obtain is high for a reason.

One can not memorize their way into a language, into a culture. People MUST learn the skills, develop the competencies to obtain a required benchmark. It takes time and lots of practice to go from consciously incompetent to unconsciously competent when it comes to skill development. IENs who pass the CELBAN pass because they are unconsciously competent in their skills when it comes to the English language and Canadian culture. In fact with CELBANPrep, IENs were discouraged in taking the exam before they proved themselves unconsciously competent. That is why the success rate of CELBANPrep graduates was so high. Their level of confidence in entering the exam was because they had obtained mastery.

Q. What is so special about these text books? 

A. For one, it is important to shift your expectations for CELBANPrep based on other resources created by Cambridge University Press for the IELTS, for example. These other books provide sample tests: lots of them. They teach people that the way to pass an exam is through memorization. They create the false belief that if you keep retaking tests you will eventually get the score you are seeking. This is not so for the CELBAN. The CELBAN is the Canadian English Language Benchmark Assessment for Nurses. As such it is:

1. a Canadian exam infused with the Canadian culture,
2. based on benchmarks – competencies equivalent to a grade.

How long does it take for you to graduate up one grade? A year. It takes similar time, effort and practice to increase your score one point.

• Sample tests will not teach you about the English language and Canadian communication skills!
• By taking tests over and over again will not acquire the skills and competencies you need to demonstrate to get the required benchmark!
• It take practice, with reliable and trustworthy resources that makes a difference.

Self study for the CELBAN, therefor, is exceedingly difficult and will take a long time due to the:

• lack of direction,
• lack of focus (lots of distractions), and
• lack of conficence.

. CELBANPrep has taken this into consideration by:

• breaking down each CELBAN task into skills you need to acquire,
• providing lessons teaching you how to acquire those skills,
• embedding videos ,
• providing examples of writing and speaking created by other IENs  (provided with permission),
• Supplying assignments for each lesson,
• providing self-evaluation tools,
• adding a section with tips and suggestions,  and
• providing you with resources so that you can create your own sample questions!

It is through CELBANPrep that you have access to creating hundreds of sample tests! The possibilities are endless.

What other resource does that? NONE!

Is there not value in that?

And how much do you think it costs to create textbooks with embedded videos?

Is there not value in that?

Q. Is there anything else to add about these text books?

A. Yes. It is also important to change your expectations of CELBANPrep basing what you expect of other resources. From the beginning CELBANPrep has offered individual courses for each skill: one for speaking, and two for writing (one for Task 1 and another for Task 2).

Each course is considered to be separate identities and not as modules. A module is just one component. The skills required of the CELBAN require more focused attention, more time, more energy, more dedication. It takes time and practice to become unconsciously competent in being able to communicate in the English language at a University level in a Canadian context; understanding the Canadian culture. That is why, unlike other resources, CELBANPrep Speaking and CELBANPrep Writing Level One are sold separately.

They are sold separately to encourage IENs to dedicate adequate time to each skill.

Such sentiments bother me when I consider that the amount I invested in creating eight versions of CELBANPrep over nine years making between $2 and $5/hr. ( 2021 update: 11 versions since 2009.)

Why did I do it? It was a labour of love. And CELBANPrep allowed me to be at home with my daughter when she most needed me to be there for/with her. That is why I have so much compassion for busy moms and dads (and others) in the category Busy People. 

• My daughter was 3 when I started my Adult Education certificate.
• She was 8 when I graduated with my MEd; 11 when I started IEPC and CELBANPrep.

In fact activities for my daughter when she was 6 years old and came home from school at the end of grade one wanting to play and watch movies all day! It became part of my graduate work and the basis of this workshop that has made a difference in lives of professionals nation wide.

Anyone who says such things doesn’t know me. They treat me as they would some large corporation.

But if they were understood that one person created all of this: they would be in awe.

One of my loyal nurses, who never even took CELBANPrep, wrote this to me in an e-mail recently,

The love and support I have received from my nurses has been immense. My hope is that instead of judging me people learn of my story, they learn of me, they find inspiration.

My work has not ended; it has been clarified and refined.

And so it is. Worlds without end. Amen.

~Kim

Learn more. Explore CELBANPrep University.