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News article (
4th Mar. 2010 )
As the world community has become increasingly connected and inter-dependent, the use of English as a common tongue has become a fact which the world of medicine is increasingly a part of. Many countries are now using English for medical seminars and conferences despite the fact that it’s not their official language, and the subsequent explosion in the demand for specifically targeted medical English courses has led to a new niche in the TEFL marketplace.
Who takes a Medical English Course?
Students from all over the world, including many of the emerging economies take medical English courses, many of whom are already medically qualified to a high level – doctors, professors, nurses, consultants and many more health care professionals are seeking ways to make their skills available globally, and the use of English is often the key that can make that happen. Anyone wishing to collaborate in medicine stands a much better chance of doing so when there’s a common method of communication, and the adoption of English for medical seminars, conferences and conventions in many parts of the world makes its use the logical choice. Many governments and medical societies around the world offer grants and scholarships for Medical English courses to their workers, and European Union initiatives have been implemented to advance English language training for the influx of non-native health care professionals.
What goes into a Medical English Course?
It’s not just technical terminology that goes into a Medical English course – lexical sets are a key part of any medical English course as students learn the names of the tools of their trade, but the communicative skills involved in dealing with patients often offer the real challenge for anyone working within the medical field in an English–speaking setting. Colloquialisms, register formality, fluency , and the ability to understand and empathize with friends and family members all go to making the task before a medical English student one of dealing with people as much as symptoms and instruments. The language skills a native speaker employs to deal with complex emotions, show care, or reassure can only really be appreciated once you have to learn them in another language. So, whilst ‘Medical English’ may sound a strange concept to many, it’s actually a very targeted set of communicative skills which are being taught alongside the ‘jargon’ and terminology of the medical world.
Are Medical English Courses Easy To Find?
Medical English courses are becoming increasingly widespread, and resources such as the European-Union-sponsored Englishmed.com are free resources aimed at promoting the use of Medical English with tutorials, games and forums. Private language schools in many countries are also developing their own courses and developing their own syllabuses, trying to find the best way to teach the variety of language skills needed by their prospective students. Medical English courses will always be niche courses compared to General English, for obvious reasons, and often run alongside general English courses depending on the skills of the student, but with the growth in their demand and the TEFL market’s desire to meet that demand, Medical English courses are here to stay.
This article is written by Tom West, director at Elanguest School of English which is located in St Julain’s, Malta.
Elanguest offers Medical English Courses. Learn more here
Source/Author: Tom West - www.elanguest.com
Published: 3rd Mar. 2010 |
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