Improving English proficiency: New challenge for medical teachers in China

Dear Sir

With the progression of globalization, ‘bilingual teaching’ (both English and Chinese as teaching language) in non-language courses has become a hot issue in colleges and universities in China. Aiming to improve students’ English competence in professional communication while they are acquiring professional knowledge, this seemingly killing-two-birds-with-one-stone approach has aroused great enthusiasm in school administrators. From 2007 up to now, more than 200 non-language bilingual courses have been nationally funded, of which 29 are medical courses (http://sy.zlgc.org).

Good intention does not necessarily lead to good results. Teachers of bilingual medical courses have complained that much more time is needed to prepare for classes than before, most of which is devoted to English preparation. Students also feel puzzled about the content discussed in class, with only some specialized terms in memory (Gui 2004).

Idealistic as it is, the strategy itself is not to blame. The problem lies in the teachers’ English proficiency, which cannot meet the needs of bilingual courses. As victims of the old education system emphasizing on examination marks while ignoring practical skills, the non-language course teachers are generally incompetent in English speaking and listening comprehension, though skillful in reading and writing. This is especially true for the medical teachers who were busy studying their time-consuming major in college years.

To help the medical teachers meet the bilingual challenge, on-campus training programs can be implemented by inviting the Medical English teachers in the same school as the trainers. Focus of training should be put on the improvement of listening and speaking skills. Different forms of drills can be designed to practice pronunciation (especially of those medical terms), such as syllable exercises, tongue twisters and so on. Oral presentation, discussions, simulated bilingual classes and other interesting activities can be arranged to promote listening and speaking competence.

Such on-campus training programs are practical and effective. They are easy to be organized by taking advantage of some staff members’ strengths to improve others. Convenient and frequent communications between trainers and trainees can induce flexible and efficient training plans and thus positive training results.

Min Chen & Xie-Wan Chen, Medical English Department, College of Basic Medical Sciences, Third Military Medical University, P.R. China. E-mail: [email protected]

Work on this letter was supported by TMMU grant 2010XRW04 (to Min Chen).