English Language For Medical Sciences
01 March 2016By Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi
The title of this article is the title of a book written by Dr. Jameel Ahmad
who is an associate professor in the community college of King Abdulaziz
University. The book ''English for Health Sciences'' was published by King
Abdulaziz University. It caters to the immediate and specific needs of the
students of Health Sciences in general and Arab students of Health Sciences in
particular. It is oriented to the teaching of specific English rather than
teaching English in general.
The author of the book teaches English for Information Technology (EIT) and
integrated language skills with electronic devices. He got his PhD in English
for Science and Technology (EST) which is a major branch of ESP, from Aligarh
Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Dr. Ahmad has written several books and
published numerous articles in reputed journals and served as an editor of
several Applied Linguistics and ELT journals from the UK, US and Canada. He
has given presentations in international conferences in different countries.
He is planning to write other books similar to the one on medical sciences on
subjects, such as administration and management and information technology.
I have found the book, which was meant for students of medical sciences, very
useful not only for students of medical sciences but also for students of
other subjects and even for anyone who is interested in studying the English
language in the right way.
According to the author, the book aims to develop the following integrated
language skills:
1. The Reading Comprehension section aims to improve learners' skimming and
scanning abilities, vocabulary and generative vocabulary and their substitute
meanings in the Arabic language. The author has also provided meanings in
Arabic to inculcate in Arab learners motivation for learning English and to
enable them to underhand the conceptual meaning of difficult English words
which are used and understood in Health Sciences.
2. Generative Vocabulary familiarizes the students of Health Sciences with
English prefixes and suffixes that are responsible for making numerous forms
of words from a single root word.
3. Multiple Choice further increases students' knowledge about their
specialized field of study. This will improve their ability to guess or to
scan the correct answer.
4. Grammar Focus unfolds different components of English grammar. Students
will have the opportunity to understand and practice different kinds of
language activities.
5. Conversation is written in a dialogue form and this will motivate the
students of Health Sciences to practice role-play activities in their own
subject-specific areas.
6. The Writing Section is designed to improve learners' writing skills. It has
two parts. The first part will enable students to frame grammatically correct
sentences from the given scientific words. The second part will enable them to
write a paragraph with accuracy on the given topic.
7. In Pronunciation, some important words have been selected from each
paragraph and their transcription has been provided with the help of phonetic
symbols as given in the Macmillan and Oxford Advanced Dictionaries.
8. Progress Check is designed at the end of every two units in order to enable
students to evaluate their own performance. With Progress Check exercises,
instructors will explore what and how much the students have learned and
retained from each unit.
9. The book also contains Medical Discourse and its core analysis. The book
discusses how common words which are frequently used in general English
acquire their specialized substitutes in Health Sciences.
I am fully convinced of the utility of this book. Students of medical sciences
will find this book very useful for learning the integrated language skills
that they need in their professional career. It will also be useful to
students of other subjects. I wish a similar book would be written in Arabic
for non-Arabs which would make the Arabic language easy for those who are
interested in learning it, especially expatriates and their families.
— Dr. Ali Al-Ghamdi is a former Saudi diplomat who specializes in Southeast
Asian affairs. He can be reached at algham@hotmail.com
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