Poster Presentation
Shaping Up a New English for Medical Purposes

Course with a Routine Student Feedback Sheet
Chieri Noda
Birkbeck, University of London
Understanding student needs and perceptions is an essential part of English forSpecific Purposes (ESP) course development (Belcher, 2009; Richards, 2001). For
a new course, obtaining feedback from the students while the course is ongoingis particularly beneficial. Such feedback can help adjust the teaching materials/
methods to better meet the needs of the students, especially if the teacher ismeeting the students for the first time, as was the case in this instance. To assess
how a new English for Medical Purposes reading course was being received by twogroups of approximately 50 third-year medical students at a Japanese university,a feedback sheet was developed for use over multiple lessons. This short paper
reports on the feedback obtained and how it was used not only for making course
adjustments but also for stimulating student engagement.
The New Medical English Reading Course
The new Medical English reading course (Table 1) was a compulsory oneyear course offered alongside oral presentation and listening courses taught bydifferent teachers. Short case reports from the New England Journal of Medicine
were thought to be appropriate for the course based on the author’s previousexperience (Noda, 2016). The lesson topics were chosen to match the subjects
taught in the clinical lectures taught in Japanese.
The Feedback Sheet
The purpose of the feedback sheet (Appendix) was to obtain information thatwould lead to an understanding of how the course was being received by thestudents. Additionally, it was a means of encouraging students to reflect on187

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Overview of the Medical English Reading CourseComponent

Term 1

Term 2Aim

To encourage students to activate their
medical knowledge in learning reading
skillsTo encourage students to activate their
medical knowledge in learning reading
skillsObjective

To raise awareness of the structure andlanguage of case reports
To foster skills for reading short casereports

To raise awareness of language use in
medical texts
To foster skills for reading medical
texts in English

Materials

Case reports from the New England
Excerpts from Harrison’s Principles ofJournal of Medicine’s Images in Clinical Internal Medicine and corresponding
Medicine section
excerpts from the Japanese version ofthe bookLessonEliciting student thinking bypresenting images (x-rays, CT scans,photographs etc.) from the case report,
followed by fill-in-the-blanks, sentence
matching, and sentence rearranging
activities

In-class English to Japanese translation
followed by self-editing andcommentary referring to the publishedJapanese version

Duration

55 minutes × 14 lessons

55 minutes × 18 lessons

Sizeapprox. 50 students × 2 groups

approx. 50 students × 2 groups

their learning and keeping track of attendance. The students were asked to write
two useful terms/sentences they learned in the lesson and a comment after eachlesson. Having students write two useful phrases has multiple purposes: (1) toencourage students to reflect and identify what was valuable for them in thelesson, (2) to enable the teacher to check what students thought was useful, and(3) to check students’ understanding. The comments section was meant to create
opportunities for students to express their reflections on what was learned as wellas to voice any suggestions or opinions on the course. The sheets were collectedand given back the following week with the instructor’s stamp and occasionally
her responses.
188

English for Medical Purposes Course, OnCUE Journal, 11(2), pages 187-193

Results and Discussion
Term 1 Student Comments
The two expressions and sentences were useful for understanding what kindof expressions the students were paying attention to and thus for devising theend-of-term exam. These included not only medical terms but also formulaic
academic phrases (FAPs; Guest, 2017). The comments could be divided into fivegeneral categories: comments on teaching materials/methods, class management
issues, individual engagement (e.g., I will try harder next time), rapport building(e.g., thank you for writing a response), and medical commentary. The comments
on class management issues, such as suggestions on seating arrangements, wereof practical value in ensuring a better classroom environment. Some students
expressed their desire to have more in-class preparation time to check vocabulary/
concepts on their own before a more teacher-led fill-in-the-blanks session. This led
to allocating more time during which students could familiarize themselves withnew vocabulary and concepts individually or in small groups. It also prompted
the creation of activities which required students to search for logic in the text
(e.g., sentence matching and rearranging).
The most notable comments, however, were those that made medical
commentary related to the course text. In this large class where students werereluctant to speak up, the feedback sheet provided some with a means formaking medical commentary. For example, one student pointed out thedifferences between combination vaccines in the US and Japan. Anotherpointed out that squamous cell carcinoma (referred to in a case report) is themost common histological type of lung cancer to cavitate. As these contributions
were particularly relevant for the course which sought to engage the students’knowledge in clinical medicine, they were shared with the whole class at asubsequent session. It was hoped that showing peer contributions would
stimulate others to make similar commentary.
Utilizing the Feedback Sheet for Term 2
The Term 1 feedback showed that some students were prepared to take theinitiative to bring in their medical knowledge into the language classroom. To189

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encourage other students to do the same, the focal activity in Term 2 was adapted
to incorporate a commentary section. The activity centered around translating
medical texts from English to Japanese. The translation activity was thought tofacilitate an accurate understanding of the text. In addition, it was hoped that itwould stimulate the students to make metalinguistic comments (Cook, 2010)
related to the medical content. The translation task was done on a worksheet andconsisted of three steps: (1) translate a text from Harrison’s Principles of Internal
Medicine into Japanese, (2) edit their own translation referring to the publishedJapanese version, and (3) write a reflective commentary on their linguistic/medical observations. While comments on grammatical structures were notdiscouraged, students were encouraged to comment on the medical terms andconcepts. They were reminded that the published translation may not be entirely
correct/appropriate. They were also encouraged to compare and comment on thetranslations. The worksheet also had an optional comments section at the bottom
for writing feedback on the course.
At the time of writing this paper, students have completed only fivetranslation tasks. Many students listed useful medical terms/phrases in thecomments section. A few requested a list of commonly used phrases showingthat they are accustomed to being given terminology lists to memorize. Somestudents did include more reflective comments on the importance of using
terminology/register appropriate for the medical textbook as shown below.
The student comments were in Japanese. The English in square brackets is theauthor’s translation.
• complicateで合併という訳は医療系の英文ならよく出てきそうだが、今回訳すことができず、まだ医療系の英文を読みなれていないと感じた。[“Complicated”
in the sense of gappei probably appears frequently in medical texts inEnglish, but I couldn’t come up with this translation. It was a reminderthat I am still not used to reading medical texts in English.]• evaluatingを「診断」と訳すのは思いつかなかった。[It didn’t occur to me that“evaluating” could be translated as shindan.]Though still few in number, some students wrote in-depth comments
drawing on their medical knowledge:190

English for Medical Purposes Course, OnCUE Journal, 11(2), pages 187-193• 血尿は肉眼的に透明でも顕微鏡的には赤血球が認められれば顕微鏡的血尿として扱われる。そのため、「 minimal 」の血尿レベルがどの程度なのか本文では分かりにくい。[Hematuria is referred to as microscopic hematuria
if erythrocytes are found microscopically even if the urine looks clear.
Therefore, it is difficult to know what degree of hematuria “minimal”
hematuria refers to in the main text.]• 「lipid-lowering agent」の訳は日本語に存在しないと思います。そこで、「スタチンなどの抗コレステロール薬」と訳すのが適していると思います。[I don’t think
there is a translation for “lipid-lowering agent” in Japanese. So, I think it
would be appropriate to translate it as “anticholesteremic agents such asstatins.”]

Conclusion

While structured surveys/interviews are essential for an in-depth understandingof student perceptions, the routine feedback sheet used in Term 1 led to a better
understanding of student views on the course and facilitated course adjustment
and rapport building. More importantly, comments on the medical content of
the text showed that some of the students were prepared to take the initiative
to bring in their medical knowledge into the language classroom. Taking thisobservation into account, the focus of the translation activity in Term 2 focusedon encouraging students to examine their own translation with reference to their
medical knowledge. The full evaluation of the ongoing use of the translation
worksheets will have to wait until the end of Term 2. What is clear at this stage
is that students seem to be taking up increased responsibility in activating their
medical knowledge in the Medical English reading course.

References

Belcher, D. (2009). What ESP is and can be: An introduction. In D. Belcher(Ed.), English for Specific Purposes in theory and practice (pp. 1-20). AnnArbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Cook, G. (2010). Translation in language teaching. Oxford, England: Oxford
University Press.
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Guest, M. (2017). What are FAPs? And why should medical students focus onthem? Journal of Medical English Education, 16(1), 18-23.
Noda, C. (2016). Developing English for Medical Purposes materials to engage
students’ medical knowledge. Journal of Medical English Education, 15(1),29-36.
Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Author bioChieri Noda teaches English for Specific Purposes courses as a part-time instructor
at private universities in Tokyo. She has an MA in Communication and is currently
writing up her PhD thesis at Birkbeck, University of London, which analyses
interaction in conversation classes. Her academic interests include classroom
interaction, conversation analysis, genre analysis as well as English for SpecificPurposes. cnoda01@mail.bbk.ac.uk
Received: October 1, 2017
Accepted: November 11, 2018192

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Appendix1938