Medical English

You will take a placement test on your first day to determine your class level. You may also take this test before your arrival in Malta.

Students booking this course should provide the school with detailed information about their professional life and English language needs in advance. This will enable the teacher to design an appropriate learning programme and provide the student/s with the most suitable resources during the course of study.

Upon completion of a needs analysis questionnaire, a tailor-made programme will be created to adhere to the specific needs and wants of the student/s.

Typical Course Content:

The course takes the student through the main stages of professional-patient communication, starting from the initial stages of examination, on to diagnosis and through to different types of medical treatment, all the while respecting the norms of medical ethics and etiquette.  

Medical lexis covered includes:

• functional everyday language such as standard collocations used in professional – patient communication;
• specialist terminology (including anatomy, symptoms, illnesses, hospital environment / equipment etc.);
• correspondent abbreviations etc..

The vocabulary learnt is recycled and reinforced in discussions, role-plays and other relevant activities that are meant to authentically simulate real-life situations in the medical professional’s workplace.

The language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking are developed and practised, often in combination, by being integrated in medical practices / settings such as the following:

• listening to typical professional-patient and professional-professional dialogues / consultations and simulating such exchanges in role-plays;
• communicating effectively with patients by understanding colloquial and layman’s terms;
• communicating effectively with professional colleagues using specialist terminology;
• interpreting, assessing and presenting a diagnosis;
• asking about and understanding patients’ descriptions of symptoms, filtering through and analysing given information, recording it correctly;
• giving accurate information to patients using non-jargonistic, layman-friendly language;
• discussing delicate situations with sensitivity and professionalism, for eg. when giving patients / patients’ relatives bad news;
• understanding case histories;
• presenting cases and assessments, arguing opinions, discussing treatments;
• understanding and using medical documents, dictionaries, journals, diagrams, reference books and other relevant material.

Course topics

Listening, speaking, pronunciation, reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar