چکیده:
This study aims at investigating the Medical students’ English language needs as the first step for designing an alternative curriculum for teaching English for Medical Purposes (EMP). It also tries to examine if the needs of medical students are perceived differently by stakeholders in medical sciences. For so doing, a structured questionnaire was developed and distributed among 282 Medical Students, 12 instructors, and 15 practitioners studying and working at (X removed for blind peer review) University of Medical Sciences, Iran. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS using statistical tests of Mann-Whitney U and Kruskall-Wallis. The findings indicated that the medical students need to be competent enough in all four language skills, considering the demanding nature of their profession in the future. They ranked the importance of language skills as reading, writing, speaking and listening, respectively. In addition, the results of four Kruskall-Wallis tests indicated a statistically significant difference among the responses of the three groups regarding the importance of the subcomponents of speaking and listening skills. Six follow-up post hoc analyses showed that the differences lay between medical students and practitioners. The findings are discussed and the implications for policy and practice are made.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Many researchers have referred to the significance of needs analysis in designing ESP courses (Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Hyland, 2006; Long, 2005; Richards, 1990, 2001).
The findings indicated that the participants believed that the English language is an important need for academic life and future career of medical students.
The second section, including four items, aimed to explore the participants’ opinions regarding the importance of major language skills, namely speaking, writing, reading, and listening for medical students.
Table 6 Writing Skills Needs {مراجعه شود به فایل جدول الحاقی} To examine if the medical students’ needs (in the 32 subcomponents of the four language skills) differ according to the ideas of the three groups of participants, namely medical students, instructors, and practitioners, and as the data were not normal, Kruskal-Wallis Test was run.
Discussion The present study tried to examine the English language needs of medical students to set the groundwork for developing an alternative curriculum for teaching EMP.
This is in line with the findings of some previous studies (such as Çelik, 2017; Javid, 2011; Malmir & Bagheri, 2019; Vahdany & Gerivani, 2016) in which the participants ranked reading as the most important language skill for medical students.
Also, a new curriculum should be developed for teaching EMP based on the English language needs of medical students.
The present study tried to explore the English language needs of medical students that can be the first step for designing an alternative curriculum for EMP teaching in medical universities.