An Investigation Into Health Science Students’ English Language Needs: Samara University in Focus
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Date
2025-03-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
English language courses are offered in higher education institutions across the majority of the world where English is spoken as a second or first language to address students' English language needs in the target-situation use. However, at all Ethiopian higher education institutions where English is spoken as a foreign language, two English language skills courses "communicative English language skills I" and "communicative English language skills II," are offered as common courses in the first year. As a result, meeting the specific language and communication needs of Ethiopian health science and medical students may be challenging. This might be reason for inadequate English language use in health science educational and professional contexts where English is largely expected. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the English language needs of health science college students at Samara University for designing specific English language course that fit the needs of the students. Hence, 131 students from the Health Science College in the academic year 2021/2022 were chosen using a stratified sampling technique. Two English language course instructor and six subject area course instructors were selected from Samara University, Ethiopia through available sampling and simple random sampling respectively. Eight health professionals from Dubti General Hospital also selected via purposive sampling. Hence, a sequential explanatory mixed-methods research design was used. The data for this study were collected using a questionnaire, TOEFL test, interview, observations, and document analysis. The quantitative data was analysed quantitatively by using descriptive statistics, mean and percentage by using spss 25 version computer software, whereas the qualitative data analysis was made based on procedures to descriptive and themes and interpreted qualitatively. The findings revealed that highly technical medical English terms which deviate from general English were used in academic fields of study and professional settings, and students want to learn these technical terms in their target situations. This study identified the priority of each English language skill as they are used in the health science field of study and future professional contexts. The findings also displayed that throughout their internship programme, health science students need translation, reporting, and grammatical skills, as well as the ability to describe the patient, condition, location, and pathology of internal organs, which will help them in their future professional careers. The data also indicated that the participating student better performed the grammar and usage skills, as well as reading skills. They did, however, perform poorly in listening and writing. The study also discovered that students' failure to characterize a patient, the case, the complaints, and the prescriptions in medical terminology was partially due to a lack of English language skills. As a result, it is recommended that English language courses for health science students be developed throughout their undergraduate studies, taking into account both their academic field of study and future profession.