A shift of focus is required in English courses for Chinese medical postgraduates

Dear Sir

In the twenty-first century, the development of information technology has undoubtedly accelerated the globalization in medical field. Cross-border academic exchange between health professionals has become increasingly frequent. In China, the medical postgraduates have more access to international academic conferences or collaborative research projects, which, thus, requires them to be more proficient in English, especially English for specific purpose. Though great efforts have been made to improve the situation of medical English teaching for the Chinese medical postgraduates in recent years, the focus is mainly on literature reading and essay writing. Cultivation of listening and speaking ability is badly neglected. Consequently, though increasing opportunities are provided to the Chinese medical postgraduates to exchange views with their international counterparts, good outcomes are not observed. They often fail to express themselves clearly in discussing professional issues. Misunderstanding is frequently caused and embarrassment is easily felt. Therefore, no matter how competent in understanding and composing scientific research papers, the Chinese medical postgraduates still feel frustrated in promoting professional discussion with their foreign peers, or giving a speech about their own research work in an international conference. Even worse, most excellent postgraduates lose the chance to participate in international cooperative programs or even voluntarily give up the opportunity to make a presentation in an international conference due to their poor spoken English for academic purpose.

It is obvious that the Chinese medical postgraduates have come across a huge language obstacle in their academic pursuit. To help them clear this barrier, we made an initial trial by incorporating training in listening and speaking into our medical English course. First, we conducted a needs analysis to identify the target situations in which professional communication is most likely to take place and problems are frequently encountered (Tom & Alan 2002). Next, we presented them a bunch of audio-visual materials accordingly, during which we explained the key language points. After that, the students were asked to practice the language skills through various forms of oral activities. Finally, we assigned different topics to the postgraduates based on their specialty, guiding them to give an oral presentation or take part in a lab meeting or case discussion by simulating the target situation.

This trial turned out to be a success. Misunderstanding in communication was reduced to a great degree. The students also showed more fluency and confidence in introducing their research work or discussing problems. The future medical English course, therefore, should focus more on improving the medical postgraduates’ listening comprehension and spoken English.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

The study was exempted from ethical approval.