Updated 2025 +
|| The Between Two Doors ||
Dear Kim,
I’m writing to you because I don’t know what to do anymore… I feel very confused. My dream is to become a nurse in Canada, but I don’t know which test I should take CELBAN or IELTS. I have been searching online for days, but everything I read just makes me more overwhelmed. I don’t understand what is the difference, or which one is better for me.
Some people say IELTS is easier… some say CELBAN is better for nurses. But I don’t know who to trust. I already spend so much time and money before, and I’m afraid to make mistake again. I can’t waste any more… I already feel tired. But still, I want to keep going.
My writing is not perfect… and speaking too. I’m worried about that. I study every day, but sometimes I still feel like nothing improve. I don’t want to give up I work hard, and I pray that God will show me the right way. I know my English is not so strong yet, but I want to be ready. I just don’t want to waste time studying the wrong things.
Kim, I found your website and read some of your blog. You feel like someone who understand. Someone who care. I feel like you know what we are going through… all of us international nurses. Your words make me feel seen. That I’m not alone.
Can you help me decide? What is really the difference between CELBAN and IELTS? And if I choose CELBAN, how can I prepare in the best way? What materials can help me for this exam? I want to study smart. not just study hard.
Thank you Kim for your time, for your heart, and for everything you do. I hope you can guide me… I will be so grateful.
With respect,
GW
Dear GW,
You began with a sentence many carry in silence:
“I don’t know what to do anymore…”
But your voice reached out, and in that reaching, you did something deeply brave.
You named the ache.
You asked the question.
You chose to continue.
Thank you for trusting me with this tender moment in your journey.
🜄 Return to Self
(When the heart longs to be seen and steady)
First, let us pause together: not to rush toward an answer, but to soften into what’s true.
Your desire to become a nurse in Canada is not new.
It did not begin with a test.
It began with service. With love. With a vision for your future that includes care, safety, dignity, and healing: not just for patients, but for your family, and for yourself.
And yet, now, here you are stuck between two doors: IELTS and CELBAN.
Overwhelmed by voices online.
Exhausted by studying.
Afraid to waste one more dollar, one more hour, one more dream.
Please know this: your confusion does not mean you are failing.
It means you are feeling.
And feeling, in a world that often demands performance, is a form of wisdom.
🜁 Fog to Clarity
(When the mind wants to choose, but not be rushed)
Let’s enter the question with softness, not urgency.
Both IELTS and CELBAN test English language proficiency.
Both include reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Both require you to communicate with clarity.
But what they ask you to say, and how, is where the difference lives.
IELTS is a general English test. It covers a wide range of topics: climate change, space travel, urban development. The skills are academic or professional, but not profession-specific. It is often accepted for immigration and education.
CELBAN, by contrast, was created just for nurses.
Its writing tasks are not essays about the economy. They are reports about patients.
Its speaking tasks are not debates about technology. They are conversations you might have in a hospital hallway, or at a bedside.
Both tests measure communication.
But CELBAN asks: Can you communicate safely, effectively, and compassionately as a nurse?
🜃 Rooted in Enoughness
(When the body says, “I’m tired of trying…”)
You wrote:
“I study every day, but I still feel like nothing improves.”
“My writing is not perfect. My speaking too.”
Let’s breathe with that.
Perfection is not the goal.
What matters is growth, understanding, and readiness. Not readiness for a test… but readiness to care for someone’s life, in a second language, in a new land.
The good news is: language is transferable.
If you are improving your grammar, your sentence structure, your ability to express ideas clearly… you are building skills that matter for both exams.
The difference is how those skills are applied.
IELTS may ask you to write about pollution.
CELBAN may ask you to write about a patient with a pressure ulcer.
The structure? Very similar.
But the content? Deeply different.
If your mind is weary from studying topics that don’t connect to your nursing life, that is not laziness.
That is disconnection.
And CELBAN may offer you a way to reconnect your language learning with your lived experience as a nurse.
🜂 Rekindling the Inner Fire
(When Spirit whispers, “I’m not ready to give up”)
You said:
“I want to study smart not just study hard.”
That tells me something essential:
You are ready to prepare with intention.
You are ready to choose… not react.
CELBANPrep’s resources were created with this exact spirit in mind.
They don’t just teach “test tricks.”
They help you practice communicating clearly in clinical situations… so that when the time comes, you’re not performing English.
You’re living it.
You’re using it to provide safe, competent, heart-centered care.
Through ebooks, guided writing, collocations, and real-life medical grammar, CELBANPrep helps you build confidence in what already lives inside you.
If you feel seen in your nursing identity, not just your language gaps: then this kind of preparation may feel more like home than hustle.
🜀 Standing at Zenith
(Where all parts of you meet: clarity, choice, and calm)
So, how do you decide?
Not by pressure.
Not by panic.
But by alignment.
Here are a few questions to gently consider:
- Which exam feels more connected to the way I already think and speak as a nurse?
- Which preparation process honors both my time and my truth?
- Where do I feel less like a test-taker, and more like the nurse I am becoming?
Neither choice is wrong.
But one may feel more like a return to who you are.
CELBAN is not “better.” IELTS is not “worse.”
They are different tools. And your choice depends on what kind of bridge you need to build next.
If you choose CELBAN, you are choosing to be evaluated through the lens of your profession.
If you choose IELTS, you are choosing a wider lens, which may still get you where you need to go; but, it might require more translation between the test and your real-life nursing work.
Both paths require preparation.
But only one may allow you to prepare in a way that feels like becoming, not just surviving.
GW, you are not lost.
You are in the in-between: that sacred, often uncomfortable place between confusion and clarity.
Let this be the moment you root into your enoughness, reclaim your rhythm, and choose your next step not with fear… but with alignment.
I’ll be here,
Walking beside you,
Breath by breath.
With reverence,
~ Kim
CELBAN or IELTS || Enouragement || Mastering Your Psychology ||
If you are looking for personal guidance and heartfelt advice on your CELBAN journey, then ‘Dear Kim’ is a perfect choice. Follow Dear Kim for a wealth of insights and answers to your questions.
If you are keen to understand medical grammar, these English Language Mastery for Health Professionals books are also available in the following marketplaces:
E-Books are available at these Amazon Marketplaces:
(Many are FREE with Kindle Unlimited.)
US UK BR DE ES FR IN IT JP NL MX PL SE AU CA
Paperback books are available at the following Amazon Marketplaces:
US UK DE ES FR IT JP MX NL PL SE AU CA
CELBANPrep’s English Language Mastery program is designed to help Internationally Educated Health Professionals achieve the level of language proficiency you need to succeed in your careers in Canada.
Dear Kim 
Leave a comment