Rate My Professor Sharon Yahalom

Dr Sharon Yahalom is a senior lecturer in the Communication in Health Professions Education Unit (COHPE) and a lecturer in the Student Academic Support Unit (SASU) in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. She earned her PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Melbourne in December 2019 and possesses over 20 years of experience as a TESOL teacher. In her roles, Yahalom provides targeted, domain-specific support to undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, focusing on the development of professional interaction, language, and clinical communication skills during their placements. She also co-delivers training programs to clinical staff to enhance their effectiveness in working with CALD students. Her teaching approach is flexible and adaptable, drawing on applied linguistics theories and effective pedagogical practices, resulting in consistently high student evaluations, including SETU scores exceeding expectations and consultation ratings of 4.93 out of 5 in 2020 and overall teaching quality of 4.94 in Semester 1, 2021.

Yahalom's research focuses on CALD nursing students' experiences in clinical placements, language and communication in nursing, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), and language testing. Notable publications include "Nurses engaging with referral letters and discharge summaries: A qualitative study" co-authored with Elizabeth Manias and published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing in 2024; "Experiences of international nursing students in simulation-based education: A descriptive qualitative study" with Thi Hang Tran, Gabrielle Brand, and James Bonnamy in Clinical Simulation in Nursing in 2026; and the editorial "Editorial: TESOL in and outside of the classroom: From measuring intervention success to grappling with issues of identity and social cohesion" with Averil Grieve and David Wei Dai in TESOL in Context in 2024. She served as Editor-in-Chief of TESOL in Context from April 2021 to December 2024. For her outstanding contributions to teaching, Yahalom received the Monash University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, both in 2021. Her work significantly impacts health professions education by bridging linguistic challenges and clinical competence for diverse student cohorts.