‏‏Case Studies in ESP Course Development - English for Medical Doctors.pptx

‏‏Case Studies in ESP Course Development - English for Medical Doctors.pptx

1. Sadiq Ashoaibi

2. English for Medical Doctors This case study describes an ESP course designed not only for a very specific group of learners but also for those learners’ needs in one particular communicative event (patient-centered consultation). The course was developed to help a group of overseas-trained medical doctors who were preparing to sit medical registration examination in New Zealand.

3. Task (pair work) How would you classify the English for Medical Doctors course in relation to the areas of ESP teaching and the types of training?

4. Organization of the Case Study Context Setting: New Zealand Students : a number of overseas-trained medical doctors The aim: to support a number of overseas-trained medical doctors in their preparations for the registration examinations Teacher: an outsider teacher Focus of the course: medical ethics and communication skills; the key event is the patient-centered consultation Time: on Friday of each week for 14 weeks

5. Investigating Needs Investigating Specialist Discourse Designing the Course and Materials Responding to Difficulties and Constraints

6. Investigating Needs In this case, the doctors’ area of greatest need had been specified for the ESP teacher (the patient-centered consultation). Identifying the source of the problem became the task of the ESP teacher along with providing appropriate instruction, the ‘remedy’.

7. Investigating Needs The ESP teacher was given a short ‘lead time’ of two weeks. This meant that the analysis of needs, in terms of what constituted the doctor’s language difficulties in this event, proceeded in a ‘find out as you go’ manner

8. Investigating Needs Ways of Collecting Information Surveying relevant literature Observation was the teacher’s main source of information about needs. The teacher’s observation of: the trainers’ modelling on a patient-centered communicative style; the doctors’ performance in the role plays; and the feedback the doctors received on the role plays

9. Task (pair work) Which approach/combination of approaches do you think the teacher/course developer will make use of? Investigating Specialist Discourse

10. Investigating Specialist Discourse The focus of the ESP course was on needs in the area of patient-centered consultations, especially the doctors’ ‘use of subtle English within these consultations. The teacher’s/course developer’s immediate objective was to investigate the nature of language use within consultations with the aim of providing a description of language use for pedagogy.

11. Investigating Specialist Discourse Multiple Sources of Information Observations of the role plays between the overseas-trained doctors and actor ‘patients’ and the feedback comments made by the professional development trainers. Observations of authentic consultations in two general practice clinics in suburban settings. Filmed materials including a television series offering an observational perspective of day-to-day interactions between doctors and patients.

12. Investigating Specialist Discourse Features of discourse in patient-centered medical consultation From the sources of information discussed above, the teacher found that the consultations were typically organized into four stages (initiating the consultation, gathering information, explaining and planning, and closing the session) and that each stage involved its own typical set of procedures (e.g., greeting the patient, making human connection, etc.).

13. Investigating Specialist Discourse Features of discourse in patient-centered medical consultation The teacher identified a set of key features of the discourse in such consultations (e.g., showing empathy, asking abut symptoms, etc.) and key lexical areas including idiomatic ways of describing pain and naming symptoms. (See Basturkmen 2010, pp. 96-101, for examples of samples of observed language use and course materials.)

14. Designing the course and materials For the ESP teacher in his case, the main consideration in designing the course was the specification of course content, that is, specification of what to teach. In this case, the ‘English Language’ lessons were scheduled to fit into the structure of one unit on the program, the Professional Development unit. The lessons lasted 90 minutes and ran concurrently with the role play sessions.

15. Designing the course and materials The teacher devised a course of instruction based on a two-pronged strategy of providing: feedback on the ‘diagnosed’ area of difficulty; and t reatment in terms of information about language use (the input) that had been derived from his/her observations of authentic doctor-patient consultations in local settings.

16. Responding to difficulties and constraints One of the difficulties the ESP teacher faced in this case was, as the teacher saw it, at the same time an advantage. The difficulty was that the ESP teacher was no medically trained (outsider). This fact, however, made the teacher focus entirely on language use.

17. Responding to difficulties and constraints The second difficulty in the development of the English course for medical doctors was that of finding authentic source materials. Given this difficulty, a key element in the development of this course was the contacts made by the professional development trainers to help the ESP course teacher gain access and obtain permission to observe medical consultations in general practice clinics.

18. Main Source: Developing Courses in English for Specific Purposes Helen Basturkmen, 2010