Thank you so much for your replies. I didn't want to bore you with a really long post, but I can see that by only giving you half the story, I made it too difficult for you to give me a proper reply. With that in mind, I'll give you the one I originally wrote, so I apologise for it's length and any parts that I've already told you.

Here's the background:

My cousin takes in students from overseas (one each year), and in the past she's always had senior high school students. This year her student is a 23 year old lass from China who's studying a Nursing degree at university. Her family, who all live in China, are not well off financially but are paying all the necessary education fees and living costs for this girl while she's in Australia.

This is not her real name, but to make it easier I'll call her Alice.

Alice speaks passable English, but her written English and her understanding of the language is quite poor. She came to Australia towards the end of last year, so she could take a bridging course in English before the nursing course started. That course ran for 4 months and she got 60% in her final assessment; the pass mark being 60%!

Alice is now attempting her very first nursing assignment, and all of the information she needs to complete it is in the case study provided by the university. It's a straight forward 5 part essay. Each part is to be around 300 words, and will most probably be the easiest assignment required of her during the whole 3 year Bachelor program.

Because I was a University Nurse Educator, I told her I would help her a little with the nursing part of the course but I have spent the past 8 days emailing her back and forth, and talking with her on the telephone, trying to help her understand what is required of her.

The due date for this assignment is in 4 days time, and so far she has only "completed" part one of the 5 necessary parts. I have returned it to to her over and over for correction, and she has yet to represent it to me at university standard. She's not even commenced the other 4 parts which are more involved and harder than the initial part.

Now for my problem. Despite all the help that I'm giving her, I think she will fail this assignment and most probably the whole semester, because of the language problem which she refuses to acknowledge. She works hard and is very bright. If not for her poor English, I think she would do very well in her studies, but because of this very reason I have suggested that she withdraw from the nursing course now, before she fails, and go back to studying English.... at least for the first half of the year .... then restart the Nursing course at a later date. I don't mean forget about it all together, I just mean defer it until she has a better grasp of the written word and it's interpretation.

That suggestion has led to 3 days of tears! Alice says that her family do not have the money to pay for any extra studies in English, which is probably true, and that she must struggle on.

In another reply to that suggestion, she says that because she passed the bridging course, then her English must be very good or she would not have passed. The fact that she only just scraped through is irrelevant. She cannot, or will not, see that she has a problem. No matter how gentle the explanation, she takes it as direct criticism and bursts into tears.

She is afraid of failure. For her, the shame of failure is so great that she says she will kill herself if she fails..... that she will not be permitted to return home because she will have shamed her parents, and could not and will not, live with that.

I believe her! I don't think this threat of suicide is just idle talk and I fear that she will really will go ahead with it. I'm being emotionally blackmailed! Even my cousin is making me feel that it will be my fault if Alice takes her own life. She (my cousin) is being totally unreasonable and I am frightened for this girl's life.

I will not do her assignments for her! I have told Alice that, and I've told my cousin that, but my cousin keeps on reminding me that Alice will commit suicide if she fails, and asks couldn't I spend more time helping her out?

I have spent hours and hours trying to help this girl, but I am beside myself with worry now! The fear of her suicide threat is wearing me down. What on earth can I do when even my cousin refuses to see it from my point of view?


Addit. I have now convinced her to ask for an extension on her due date.