THE ACADEMIC AND VOCATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEEDS OF THE SCHOOL OF HEALTH STUDENTS

Abstract

This study investigates the perceptions of the nursing and midwifery students attending the School of Health offering Turkish medium courses at Mersin University in Turkey on their academic and vocational needs of English in order to improve the current curriculum, materials and language instruction. The data were collected through the questionnaires and interviews conducted with five groups consisting of the second year midwifery and nursing, the third year midwifery and nursing and the fourth year midwifery students having vocational English courses carried out by two English instructors. The perceptions of the students were presented in an elaborate and detailed manner in the study through the research tools of questionnaire and interview. The main results of the study indicate that the student groups want to improve their four English language skills, particularly speaking and listening skills compared with reading and writing skills. Besides, most of the students conceive that the materials that were compiled by the English instructors are inadequate in some ways and should be developed in order to enhance their effectiveness in the classes; and the language instruction of the English instructors do not help the students acquire vocational English efficiently, and it should be improved to increase the students’ learning capacity in vocational English.