Graduate qualifying work

Practical case

The Institute of Paramedics in Biskra -Algeria offers to the new baccalaureate students an interesting curricula of the degrees, that is, nursing, radiology, Clinical Analysis and Public Health, Physiotherapy, social assistance and midwifes, include one semester of English in the first year. According to the vice director of the studies, their syllabi is designed to meet the Algerian learners needs and each specialty recommendation’s. In this semester, students are introduced to general health topics such as the human body terminology, illnesses and complaints, in addition to general communication skills including speaking and reading. Our study was carried out at the Institute of Paramedics in Biskra with fifty first-year clinical analysis students aged between seventeen and nineteen, from both genders and their ESP female teacher graduated with Master degree, in addition to five other teachers from other specialties. The investigation had lasted from February to May. Tow questionnaires with open format questions and closed format questions (appendix n° 01 and n°02), to both ESP teachers and clinical analysis students, were conducted attempting to answer the question: What differentiate an ESP teacher from a GE one? What are the roles of the ESP teacher? Should an ESP teacher take needs analysis into consideration before to start teaching ESP? Should an ESP teacher take training courses before teaching?

Description and evaluation of the Course

Technical English for health care profession is a crucial course that is offered in the second semester of the first year Clinical analysis students at the Institute of Paramedics Biskra. The syllabus was given twenty-one hours for the whole semester, three hour per a week which is not sufficient to fulfill the course objectives or to meet all the learners’ needs. The learners needs and level in English were evaluated through a pre-test (appendix n°04) in the first lecture which had been designed by their ESP teacher in order to design lessons according to their level, understanding and weakness. Since the course is oriented towards communication rather than knowledge acquisition in the field of specialization, Clinical analysis students are trained to interpret and use words appropriately and to formulate grammatically correct statements while talking and writing by exposing them to certain topics such as, lab reports, Blood(appendix n°03) , and hospital procedures. In addition to this, medical terminology is presented to them in order to be familiar with medical words of Latina and Greek roots, suffixes, prefixes.