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ABSTRACT

DESIGNING A COURSE FOR ESP (ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES) HAS ALWAYS BEEN A CHALLENGE FOR THE TEACHERS AS ALL STUDENTS HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS. THE AIM OF THIS ARTICLE IS TO PRESENT SOME OF THE MOST COMMON ISSUES WE ENCOUNTER WHEN CREATING A COURSE FOR THE MEDICAL SYSTEM AND SOME OF THE SOLUTIONS WE HA VE CONSIDERED WHEN DEALING WITH THEM. FURTHERMORE, WE HAVE UNDERGONE A NEEDS ANALYSIS AND DIAGNOSTIC TESTING WORK ON A SAMPLE OF STUDENTS IN ORDER TO OPTIMIZE THE COURSE PLAN AND TO ADAPT ALL THE MATERIALS A CCORDING TO THEIR EXPRESSED NEEDS. THE ARTICLE SUMS- UP SOME OF THE DA TA OBTAINED AND REPRESENTS THE FIRST STEP IN CREA TING NEW AND MODERN MA TERIALS.

KEY WORDS: ESP, COURSE DESIGN, NEEDS ANALYSIS, DIAGNOSTIC TESTING

1.GENERAL REMARKS

Most teachers of English for Specific Purposes deal with a mixture of issues when designing a course for a certain group of specialists. Most of these issues occur because of the lack of time teachers have when preparing such a course 2 or the working context, e.g. the language centre where they work, forces them to accept such a course.

The main goal of an ESP course, and more specifically a course related to Medical English, is to help students understand and communicate in a Health Department. But the ESP course cannot function without the basis of General English. Therefore, we can underline a first distinction between GE courses and ESP courses, - the latter refers to a specific age group, adults. DudleyEvans3 reckons in 1997 that ESP is not necessarily a characteristic of adult learners, but at least of intermediate or advanced level. If GE can be taught from an early age, ESP only addresses people from the working environment or a future one. The same aspect is valid for Medical English taught in universities. The students are supposed to have already gained a language level which enables them to assimilate specialized vocabulary. The reality has demonstrated that their levels are so different that there were cases when the low-ones feel so demotivated that they want to sign out of the language module. That is the reason why when planning a course there should be enough activities to involve peer feedback and even...

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