Book Review

Therapy Care: An English Course forTherapists

Jim Smiley, Michiyo Masui, & Tomoaki Asano. Perceptia
Press. 2014. (91 pages). ISBN 4-939130-63-2 Price: ¥2,160
Reviewed by Daniel J. Mills
Ritsumeikan University
Health professionals must possess above-average communication skills in orderto accurately assess patients’ needs and provide personalized on-going care. Thisis especially true of occupational and physical therapists who often work withpatients over extended periods of time and continually modify their treatment
plans as their patients’ conditions change. Communicating effectively andaccurately in a health care setting is usually a challenge under any circumstances
but can be particularly difficult when the therapist needs to do so in a secondlanguage. For this reason, it is helpful for both teachers and students of English
to have access to quality materials specific to their needs.
While there are many English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbooks thatprovide instruction for medical professionals, Therapy Care: An English Course
for Therapists is unique in its focus on the vocabulary and situations mostencountered by physical and occupational therapists in the Japanese context.
The text is divided into 12 core units as well as an additional vocabulary chapter.
Each core unit is centered on a theme such as The Workplace, Measurement, andPosture, and contains an introduction, listening, speaking, reading, vocabulary
review, and case study sections. Exercises in each section are consistentthroughout the units. Instructions for each exercise are given in both English
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Millsand Japanese. The vocabulary chapter at the end of the book also contains 12units that focus on the words that physical and occupational therapists might
encounter most often in their practice including anatomical terms, descriptorsof movement, as well as physical and emotional states. Each term in these units
is presented in a list in both English and Japanese, which is followed by two
vocabulary memorization games. Audio downloads for the text can be found on
the publisher’s Web site (www.perceptiapress.com). Teachers’ resources are notavailable online but are provided by direct request to the publisher.
Therapy Care: An English Course for Therapists possesses several uniquecharacteristics that make it a good choice for tertiary-level English courses fortherapists in the Japanese context. First, the textbook is well organized andfollows a clear pattern in presenting the material and the activities used topractice it. These attributes can make lesson planning simple for teachers andallow students, especially ones not confident in their English-language skills,
to adequately prepare for classes. In addition, the sections in each unit progressfrom passive activities involving listening and reading to active output in bothspoken and written form. Furthermore, activities in the text often allow students
to practice speaking using fixed dialogues before providing opportunities toad lib using the language learned. In Japanese university classrooms, culturalfactors may inhibit students from actively participating and taking chances withlanguage production. For this reason, the progressive format of the exercisesin this text might be helpful in affectively scaffolding students towards greater
confidence and usage of the target language. Finally, the authors do a good job
of making sure that each activity is related to the situations and vocabulary
therapists may encounter in their jobs once they graduate. Especially interestingis the inclusion of a of a case study section at the end of each unit that allows
students to integrate skills they have learned in their content classes with theirEnglish study.
Despite these positives, there are some areas where the text could beimproved. While the consistency and repetition of the exercises in each unit
can be seen as a positive in some respects, it also increases the chances of thematerial becoming repetitive for both teachers and students as the semester
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Therapy Care, OnCUE Journal, 9(3), pages 323-326

progresses. This could increase the workload for teachers as they struggle todevelop supplementary exercises to support the text. Furthermore, the Japanesetranslation of the instructions provided at the beginning of each exercise
can be useful, but since the same exercises are used in each unit, it would be
more effective to phase out this scaffolding after the first couple of units. The
vocabulary units at the end of the book provide students with a number of usefulterms for their profession. However, these vocabulary items are not integrated
into the theme-based units, denying students the opportunity to see how theseterms could be used in context. In addition, the inclusion of more visuals in theseunits would be helpful in increasing students’ understanding of the vocabulary,as many of the terms refer to anatomy and movement. Finally, while the inclusionof case studies at the end of each unit allows students to integrate their therapy
and English skills in an activity, the exercises seem rather formulaic to be usedin every chapter of the book. These sections could be improved if later units
encouraged students to role play the interaction between patient and therapist
and create more in-depth treatment plans for the patients.
Therapy Care: An English Course for Therapists is a highly specialized
textbook that will be helpful to teachers of English as a foreign-language(EFL) in vocational, college, and university programs focusing on the teachingof occupational and physical therapies. As a whole, the authors do a good job
in aligning the activities in the text with the needs of future therapists, andproviding scaffolding that will be beneficial specifically to Japanese learners.
However, the textbook could be vastly improved through the inclusion ofmore varied and challenging exercises. In addition, vocabulary units should beintegrated into the themed units, and students would benefit from the inclusionof visuals to support the learning of the terms presented in these units. Despite
these limitations, Therapy Care: An English Course for Therapists fills a gap in thecurrent selection of textbooks for ESP, and will be a welcome addition for bothstudents and teachers in therapy programs in Japan.

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MillsAuthor Bio

Daniel J. Mills is a lecturer of English as a foreign language (EFL) in the Economics
Department at Ritsumeikan University. Daniel is a doctoral candidate at theUniversity of Wyoming studying instructional technology, and a graduate of theAmerican Institute of Massage. Before coming to Japan, Daniel worked in theUnited States as a massage therapist and martial arts instructor. eslteacherjapan@
gmail.com
Received: August 25, 2015
Accepted: October 8, 2015

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