Language acquisition and Internet
Judit Hajnal
Gabriella Marschalkó
Language Department, University Medical School of Debrecen
László Agócs
Department for Educational Technology, University Medical School of Debrecen
Tamás Molnár
Informatics Group, University Medical School of Debrecen
Languages for Specific Purposes: Some aspects of materials developed for language acquisition assisted by the Internet
Address:
Judit Hajnal
Language Department, DOTE
DEBRECEN, Nagyerdei krt. 92.
HUNGARY
H-4010
e-mail:
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to present a pedagogically innovative approach in material development as well as to provide a model for other materials writers to adapt and develop. Our method of exploiting the merits of combining classroom work (activities performed in class) and field work (medical students’ hospital practice) as well as those of team teaching (carried out by doctors and language teachers) and the facilities offered by the Internet for the purpose of language acquisition has created a new basis for materials development in teaching languages for specific purposes. In order to illustrate our pedagogical approach, plenty of examples of materials will be provided in this paper and on the Internet (Hajnal, 1997).
Needs analysis
After establishing the English Programme in 1985 at the University Medical School of Debrecen, in addition to the Hungarian medical courses of great reputation, the growing number of English speaking students has meant that as well as teaching Hungarian for general purposes (based on well developed materials) there has also been a need to develop easily accessible materials in the area of language teaching for specific purposes. Needs analysis has proved the same, in order to design the syllabus for our 3rd and 4th year courses, we needed materials that can be used both individually (by the students on their own) and in class (with the instructions of a language teacher). Much of the material used previously seemed to be useful for our purpose, however, a lot had to be discarded owing to the modified needs of our students as well as the different requirements in acquiring language proficiency.
The development of materials was also initiated because quite a lot of students prefer studying on their own, and come to classes to learn and to consult the teacher rather than expecting to be lectured. Problem based learning is becoming more and more widespread in language learning, and the Internet seems to support students in working at their own pace. Thus, a variety of strategies are emerging to combine individual and classroom studies in the curriculum. The three approaches to the language teaching syllabus, i.e. content-based, skill-based and method-based syllabuses should be considered (Robinson 1991, 34).
Conditions
The general conditions for language acquisition for foreigners can be considered ideal at the Medical School. Living in the country gives students the perfect opportunity to put into practice immediately what they have been taught. They are highly motivated to study the language, as it is essential in their practical training and they really need to speak the language in order to manage their prospective profession.
Table 1 shows how much Hungarian is used for specific purposes in the practical classes as well as during the summer hospital practice.
Table 1.
Year / Practical classes / Hours / Hospital practice / Hours2nd / - / 1 subject / 140
3rd / 2 subjects / 104 / 2 subjects / 140
4th / 5 subjects / 168 / 4 subjects / 400
5th / 8 subjects / 300 / 4 subjects / 400
6th / 6 subjects / 40 weeks
While the language of instruction is English, and both professors and doctors have a good command of English, most patients can speak only in Hungarian. By the end of the 3rd year, students are supposed to make a diagnosis on the basis of the data collected from the patient in Hungarian as well as from the physical examination also conducted by the students in Hungarian. So their success in their professional examination depends on a good command of the language. Consequently, the motivation to study the language is real, and concrete. They study not only for good grades or attendance but also to achieve the main goal: to become good doctors. After graduation many of them continue their studies in post-graduate courses in Hungary to specialize, where the language of instruction is Hungarian.
Figure 1. Hungarian for specific purposes as used in the medical classes
Students, teachers and doctors
Medical students tend to be dedicated and intelligent young people, who quickly realise the need to master the language. Therefore it is easy to work with them. Furthermore, those who volunteered to take part in collection and development of material proved to be extremely inventive.
Courses are given by experienced native Hungarian teachers also specialised in teaching English for general and specific purposes, with special experience in teaching Medical English. Classes always focus on the language aspect, thus teachers are not expected to have the knowledge of doctors. Students mainly need everyday language for medical situation, they need to be familiar with the way ordinary patients will describe their disease.
Students start to study the language for specific purposes after a general language course of two years (270 hours). By this time the majority has obtained a good command of the language at an intermediate or post-intermediate level. More precisely, they have a comprehensive knowledge of basic Hungarian grammar as well as a reasonably large vocabulary, however, it is still rather difficult for them to communicate. Thus, in addition to the language for specific purposes, they also need a further improvement in the basic skills, especially speaking and listening, as they need to speak and understand speakers from different age groups with different social and educational backgrounds.
A lot of help and support is given by the professors and doctors teaching in the programme. They all have a good command of English, and most of them are available to help both the students and the language teachers. Unfortunately, some will translate patients' words to save time, whereas others allow students to take the medical history on their own, interfering only if necessary, and listening to the case report only after all the data have been collected. Some of them are willing to do team teaching with language teachers, and even allow language teachers to be present in practical classes while students are taking medical history.
Language teachers at the Medical School do have to face special difficulties. As the groups are multicultural (we have American, Canadian, Indian, Norwegian, Persian, Swedish, Greek, etc. students), several problems of the language, interpretation and association may arise. Figure 2 shows the division of students by their mother tongue. About half of the students have English as their mother tongue, (52 per cent), whereas the other part can be divided into two groups: the first speaking languages which use Latin letters (Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, etc), the second which use different letters (Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Israelis, etc.), 21 and 27 per cent, respectively.
Students for whom English, the language of instruction, is their second language, are sometimes juggling with information in three languages at the same time, so it is better to minimalise the use of English (e.g. translation exercises) in the multinational groups. As English is the official language of the English Programme, translations or explanations, if necessary, are conveyed in this language.
Students who write in different characters will have added difficulties and may also feel handicapped in mixed groups. Consultations and individual studies may be helpful. With the audio material as well as with the material on the Internet intended for individual usage, these disadvantages can be worked out.
There are also problems with students from English speaking countries originating from the lack of experience in language acquisition as compared to other students. North American students especially have little or no experience in learning and speaking foreign languages. This does not seem too serious at the first sight, but having no idea of grammatical terms in the mother tongue may aggravate the task.
It should be noted that the material requires a different student-teacher relationship as well as a different attitude from the teacher. Recently the role of the instructor has changed a lot, from that of the omnipotent taskmaster or tyrant to a more human role, where the language teacher is rather a partner who gives as much support as s/he can.
Available materials
The first book to teach this kind of material was written by Dezsõ Kulcsár and Judit Hajnal, published at the University Medical School of Debrecen, Hungary in 1989 (Kulcsár-Hajnal, 1989), which is a textbook of everyday medical Hungarian for non-Hungarian students. Its texts and vocabulary are still valid, however, the methods could be improved.
The other textbook entitled Mi a panasz? (What's the matter?) written by Mária Gyõrffy (1995), available also in English for students of English (Gyõrffy, 1996), is a very thorough book, easy to work with, containing short dialogues and presentations followed by a variety of exercises.
Miscellaneous materials are made available by the courtesy of friends, patients and doctors, (without confidential information, of course), e.g., case reports, drug instructions, final reports, laboratory findings, fever charts, etc. They can all be used in class as source materials, as they are authentic texts, not invented, shortened or 'made up' for language learners, and they represent a useful reference source.
The Course
The language course for specific purposes is preceded by a two-year course of general language as shown in Figure 3.
This course focuses on the four basic skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. The curriculum is mostly based on the audio-visual series entitled Hungarolingua (Hlavacska et al. 1991, 1993), developed by the professors and language teachers teaching at the Debrecen Summer School, an institution with a great tradition and reputation in Hungarian Studies. In addition to the vocabulary necessary for everyday communication, the units of the series teach the most important grammatical features of the Hungarian language (Hajnal 1995, 8). By the end of the course students are familiar with the basic grammatical structures (verbal conjugations, declinations, sentence patterns, etc.). However, the needs analysis showed that our language course for specific purposes should concentrate on speaking and listening, because students are expected to understand and talk to patients from different age groups and different social layers.
Language classes for specific purposes are attended mostly by 3rd and 4th year medical students of the English Programme, they can really exploit the 180 hours of classroom work. The 2-4 week summer hospital practices as well as many of the practical classes during the academic year give further opportunities to improve their language skills if they have been prepared properly during instruction and if their experience has been supplemented by easily available material with explanations and/or translations.
By the end of the 3rd year, students are supposed to carry out history taking in Hungarian, which includes dominating the interview, asking questions about personal and family history, previous diseases and operations, eating and drinking habits, (sometimes awkward questions about bowel movements or urination) and reflecting to patients' answers. Prospective doctors have to learn how to go through the three-stage sequence of elicitation/reply/follow up as well as to create a positive atmosphere. Finally, as a result of all the communicative activities, they have to make the proper diagnosis.
Consequently, the aim of the course is to improve speaking skills, comprehension and vocabulary by developing a routine, a familiarity in the classroom, so that students should feel confident and familiar in the teaching hospital. In summary, the main purpose is to increase the students' power and range of expression in the field of everyday medical language.
The material
The target audience of our material entitled Learn (Medical) Hungarian is the group of foreign students studying medicine in Hungary, however, the bilingual parts have been found useful by Hungarian students and young doctors studying English, since it aims at improving communicative activities with patients. Assuming an intermediate level or higher, no grammatical explanations are provided, however certain Hungarian features are explained from the grammar aspect (for example, special polite forms, imperative, etc.). The Internet-version just needs network access and a minimal knowledge of surfing on the Internet.
Once the language requirements demanded by the syllabus in internal medicine were defined, language materials and methods were collected. In addition to consulting similar materials from other languages, data have been obtained from physicians, medical students, nurses and patients. This information focuses on the most relevant issues from both the medical and linguistic points of view.
Lists of questions with some possible answers as well as lists of words and expressions were compiled after having been tried out not only in language classes but also in the internal medical practices. Each section is intended for classroom work, with the language instructor offering a wide variety of teaching methods, however, these activities can be completed by a version available on the Internet. The in-class activities include role-plays, pair work, group work, individual work, listening and reading comprehension, drills, translation, grammar exercises using a wide variety of texts and vocabulary. We found that advanced students could study almost all of it individually, as it includes the necessary amount of information on grammar and usage.
All the material has been computerised, with the programmes Microsoft Word for Windows, Excel and PowerPoint for Windows so that it can be rearranged easily. Part of the material can also be found on the Internet at made with the help of Microsoft Internet Assistant, Netscape Navigator Gold and Netscape Communicator.
The structure of the material is defined by its purpose, and arranged with the relevance to medicine as a priority, but wide ranging in scope, so it can be adjusted to the special needs of the particular group. Figure 4 shows contents with the help of the opening page on the Internet, the underlined titles represent clickable links.
Figure 4. Contents
Learn (Medical) Hungarian
Welcome to the Learn (Medical) Hungarian page. This site intended to help medical students who study medicine in Hungary to manage with Hungarian patients during their studies. But anyone who wants to learn Hungarian may find interesting ideas about the everyday Hungarian language here.
CONTENTS
Specialists (Milyen orvosok dolgoznak a klinikán? )
History taking for internal medicine (Anamnézis felvétele a belgyógyászati kórlap alapján I.)
Questions and possible answers (Kérdések a beteghez, lehetséges válaszok
History taking for obstetrics (Anamnézis felvétele a szülészeti kórlap alapján )
Everyday names of diseases (A leggyakoribb betegségek hétköznapi elnevezése )
Adjectives associated with diseases (Betegségek: melléknevek )
General names of diseases (A betegségek általános elnevezései)
Hypertension (Magas vérnyomás).
Liver cirrhosis (Májzsugorodás, májcirrhosis)
Complaints and symptoms (Panaszok és tünetek)
Medication (Gyógyszerelés )
Questions for medication (Kikérdezés)
Instructions during physical examination (Utasítások a beteg vizsgálata közben)
Giving information and asking for cooperation during physical examination (Információ és felhívás együttmûködésre a fizikális vizsgálat közben)
Places at the clinics (Helyviszonyok a klinikán Hová? Hol? Honnan?)
Time expressions (Idõ kifejezése)
There is list of branches of medicine, specialists, and departments, which is followed by 'history taking' according to the format used at the 1st Dept of Internal Medicine at the medical school. There is also history taking in gynaecology. The Internet-version gives the correct translation of the questions, whereas some possible answers can be found in another part. The everyday names of the most frequent diseases (with English/Latin equivalents) are followed by the names of general diseases and the related verbs as well as adjectives associated with them. Parts presenting complaints and symptoms describe the characteristics of some basic diseases, as related by patients.
The section on medication includes the general names, forms and side effects of drugs as well as basic questions and some possible answers. Instructions during physical examinations are given in the polite 3rd person forms and in infinitive constructions. This is followed by a list of expressions informing and calling for co-operation from the patient during examination.
Among the texts there are lists of questions with or without answers, charts, final reports, drug descriptions, test results, and laboratory findings, most of these are authentic and were collected by students and doctors. An example for the variability of the computerised texts is given in Appendix 1and 2.
Further assignments
The material provides a wide variety of activities (such as doctor–patient role plays in several surgery situation) and exercises (missing questions, fill-in-the-gaps, match-the-pairs, odd-one-out, crossword puzzles, short essays, translations) to be performed with or without a language teacher. Group work, pair work or individual work can all be designed for classroom studies. Students can work on the written material at home on their own or with their fellow students, and can then consult the teacher. The audio material gives further support with recordings at two different speeds, one slower for studying, and the other at the normal speed of speech. The Internet-version gives most of the translations and explanations in English so that it could be used by students studying on their own. It also provides the visitors with some clickable links to Web sites related to learning Hungarian (e.g. learning everyday Hungarian, the homepage of the Debrecen Summer School offering also intensive courses in Hungarian, the pages of Hungarolingua Grammatica presenting a practical Hungarian grammar) as well as sites with background information on the country and culture (e.g. Hungary homepage, University Medical School homepage, newspapers, magazines and literary journals, Hungarian Electronic Library, etc.).
Students in materials development
Our materials development has another innovative element: the involvement of students. The idea of involving students interested in the particular language learning process seemed an obvious step after some students widened the range of materials in order to match the special needs of a particular group or hospital. Texts and part of the vocabulary have been recorded at two different speeds at the request of students whose mother tongue does not use Latin letters. The idea of writing lists of questions on flashcards comes from students too. The laminated cards can then be used in the hospital during the history taking. With the help of students, the part on history taking has been arranged to highlight compulsory questions. Possible answers are also given, and other probable questions are worked out and marked with an asterisk in case they should be necessary. Appendix 3 shows an example of material development supported and completed by students.