Speaker
Description
As English plays an increasingly central role in medical education and professional communication, English for Medical Purposes (EMP) courses aim to prepare students to participate in the communicative practices of the medical profession. These practices include spoken interaction, such as doctor–patient and doctor–doctor communication, as well as written genres through which clinical knowledge is constructed and shared. Drawing on concepts from English for Specific Purposes, particularly genre and discourse community, this presentation reports on the design of an EMP course for second-year pre-clinical medical students in Japan that implements a genre-informed pedagogical approach using short case reports as a central instructional resource.
In this course, case reports are introduced as a genre through which members of the medical discourse community share clinically meaningful observations and construct diagnostic narratives. The course emphasizes the communicative purpose, rhetorical organization, and language features characteristic of this genre. Through guided analysis, students examine how diagnostic reasoning is communicated within this genre.
Building on this genre awareness, students participate in peer-teaching sessions in small groups in which they present and explain selected case reports to their classmates. The cases then serve as the basis for role-play activities in which students create and simulate doctor–patient/family interactions and doctor–doctor interactions. These activities encourage students to explore how medical knowledge is communicated differently depending on the context.
By linking the analysis of a written medical genre with peer exchanges and simulated clinical communication, the course aims to help students recognize and participate in the communicative practices of the discourse community and to develop greater confidence in English-mediated medical interaction. The presentation discusses the pedagogical rationale for this genre-informed approach and considers its implications for EMP course design for pre-clinical medical students.