The medical staff awareness of the importance of implementing an ESP course for medical students : the case of subject teachers at the department of medicine at Mouloud Maameri University-Tizi Ouzou

Abstract EN

English has gained an important position among languages of the world because of the scientific and economic development of the English speaking countries.

It is becoming obvious that keeping abreast with science and technology through reading the recent published works requires a good control over English.

It is, also, acknowledged that participating in international events like conferences requires this language since the majority of these conferences are conducted in English.

In the Algerian university, the lack of ESP courses, in many departments, is seen as an obstacle in front of good achievement.

Medical students at the University of Tizi Ouzou show an eager need to learn the language but the ence of a course and trained teachers in ESP remains a gap in front of satisfying their needs.

This study aims at shedding light on the conditions under which an ESP course is conducted and highlighting its importance for medical students.

It aims, also, at searching for the different reasons that lead to unsuccessful achievement and the students' difficulties when faced with materials of their specialty written in English.

For this purpose, it seems necessary to briefly review the relevant literature related to the field of ESP.

Since our study falls under the frame of quantitative studies whose aim is to present pictures of the group under investigation, the descriptive statistical method seems to be adequate relying on the questionnaire as a data collection tool.

The questionnaire is addressed to subject specialists, i.

e.

doctors who are at the same time teachers at the Department of Medicine.

They are experienced teachers who were one day students and are aware of the significance of English in their field.

The results are analyzed using percentage and histograms.

Open-ended questions are approached through small comments summarizing the respondents' propositions.