Abstract

In the majority of medical schools worldwide, English is used as the language of instruction. In contexts where English is a second or foreign language, medical students face the challenge of having to learn skills and subject matter required in their field in a language they may be unfamiliar with. For English language support provided to students to be effective, the development of language programs must be informed by an assessment of students' needs. The current literature shows that systematic analyses of students' needs as a basis for developing English for medical studies programs are rarely conducted, and there is often a mismatch between the needs of students and the English courses offered. To obtain targeted information about students' language needs for program development, input from the main stakeholders, medical students and medical teachers, is crucial. In this article, we report the results of an English language needs analysis conducted at a medical school in Malaysia where English is spoken as a second language by most Malaysian students. Forty-three medical lecturers and 226 students responded to a needs analysis questionnaire. A description of students' English language needs ranked in order of priority for training is derived, covering the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing across various learning activities required of students in the clinical years. While students and lecturers concur on the most important needs of students, students perceive the use of English for academic purposes and understanding the professional mode of talk more pressing while lecturers emphasise students' needs for using English in the clinical setting, particularly communication with patients and reading case related texts. Needs derived from the perspectives of medical lecturers and students provide valuable information about the relative importance and urgency of needs to be addressed in English language programs for medical students.