At present, the English needs of nurses in Japan are mainly associated with using, and understanding, technical terms in medicine and nursing. This strongly indicates that a crucial part of teaching English to student nurses, in order to meet these needs, will be to develop their lexical knowledge of these technical terms (Watanabe, 1998). However, the tight curriculum employed in nursing schools and the student nurses' general lack of motivation to learn English make the teaching of vocabulary difficult (Takakubo, 2002). A questionnaire study by Takakubo (2002) suggests that newly-enrolled student nurses are aware of the need for vocabulary in their future work and are motivated to learn medical terms. These circumstances suggest useful vocabulary should be selected for teaching and it should be taught effectively.