English for medical sciences

Duration

25h Pr

Number of credits

Lecturer

Christine Filot, Jérôme Gaillard

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The English course in Medicine aims at enabling students to understand medical content (texts, presentations,...) in English as well as communicating (speaking and writing).
The first-year course is a medical English course of B1/B2 (CEFR) level (B2 for reading and B1 for listening). It consists of two-hour classes throughout the first semester.
As the main purpose of the course is to develop a KNOW-HOW, the students are encouraged to do reading comprehension exercises each week. This enables them to progressively acquire the basic medical vocabulary and improve their reading skills.
Homework assignments are increasingly difficult to reach the level of the final exam. So, the students can assess the progress they are making in the accurate reading of medical English texts.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

The course mainly aims at developing skills for the global and selective reading comprehension of scientific documents as well as listening comprehension, written and oral expression but also frequent grammatical structures.
Each chapter features short, simple texts aimed at introducing the subject and genuine unsimplified and unabridged papers. Most chapters also contain listening exercises serving to introduce the medical vocabulary differently. Moreover, frequent grammatical structures found in the texts are also discussed. Writing and speaking exercises are also part of the course.
Acquired skills should allow students to access specific scientific literature easily and efficiently.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

The Med Eng 1 course has a B2 level for reading, which means that the students are expected to already have a basic grounding in English grammar and vocabulary. It is taught in the first semester. 
All students are strongly advised to attend the English classes every week and pay special attention to their lecturer's remarks and explanations.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

In-class course in the first quarter with compulsory exercises to be done before and/or after the class ; self-assessment tests posted during the year.
Class attendance and preparatory exercises are compulsory. A 70% attendance rate is required (at least 9 out of 13 sessions) to be allowed to take the first-session exam.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Med Eng 1 course taught in the first semester with a series of podcasts and videos, self-assessment exercises and self-assessment tests.
Written exam in January.

Recommended or required readings

The course book will be available from the INTERCOPY shop and on eCampus as of September 2017.

 

Assessment methods and criteria

Written exam in January Students will be asked to answer multiple-choice and True/False questions as well as short open questions on
- a listening comprehension,
- an unseen medical text,
- the medical vocabulary from the course book,
- the grammatical structures studied in class.
Moreover, written tasks such as definitions and "compare and contrast" will be part of the examination.

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

1. Considering the significant differences among 1st-year students and the limited teaching time, supervised self-learning and remedial work should be given due attention.
Students are encouraged to work every week and seriously do the work required for each course Unit.
2. They can also purchase the ISLV Grammaire Anglaise de Base with exercises (and key) and/or use the GABi Website on eCampus.

Contacts

Jérôme Gaillard, ISLV, chargé d'enseignement, jgaillard@ulg.ac.be
Christine Bouvy, ISLV, Responsable des Cours de Langues Facultaires, cbouvy@ulg.ac.be

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