Task-Based Needs Analysis for Medical Spanish

Document Type

Poster

Presenter Language

English

Research Area

Applied linguistics

Location

MBSC Chancellor's Room

Start Date

18-10-2024 2:30 PM

End Date

18-10-2024 3:30 PM

Abstract

Task-Based Needs Analysis for Medical Spanish

Key Words: Medical Spanish, Spanish for Specific Purposes, Task-Based

Over the last thirty years, the popularity of Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) courses has surged at U.S. universities (Klee, 2015), highlighting the urgent need for research that can underpin effective teaching practices and material development. Efforts have been made to create research-based curricula for Business Spanish classes adopting a Task-Based Language Teaching approach, however, the medical field continues to be under-researched. This project revisits the studies carried out by Serafini and Torres (2015), and Martin and Adrada-Rafael (2017) in the area of Business Spanish and replicates them in the context of Medical Spanish courses. The main objective is twofold: 1) to carry out a needs analysis of Medical Spanish students, and 2) to create a semester-long curriculum for a Medical Spanish course. By performing a needs analysis to develop a task-based Medical Spanish curriculum, instructors are able to incorporate the perspective and experience of working professionals in the medical field, as well as design course content that is relevant for students and easily applied in a professional setting. The data collection for this project took place in three higher education institutions and consisted of three phases. In Phase 1, a small sample of medical professionals, students in health sciences, and instructors of Medical Spanish were asked to identify a list of real-life, non-linguistic tasks that need to be accomplished by someone working in the medical field. In Phase 2, a larger sample of students in health sciences answered a questionnaire where they rated the frequency and difficulty of each task identified during the first phase, on a 5-point Likert-scale. In Phase 3, researchers examined and classified the target tasks into the domains of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This classification informed the creation of major target task categories that served as the structure for the Medical Spanish curriculum and informed the design of course objectives and class materials.

Klee, C. A. (2015). Content-based programs and Spanish for the professions. In M. Lacorte (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of Hispanic applied linguistics (pp. 184–201). New York: Routledge.

Martin, A. & Adrada-Rafael, S. (2017). Business Spanish in the real world: A task-based needs analysis. L2 Journal, 9(1):39-61.

Serafini, E. J., & Torres, J. (2015). The utility of needs analysis for nondomain expert instructors in designing task‐based Spanish for the professions curricula. Foreign Language Annals, 48(3): 447–472.

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Oct 18th, 2:30 PM Oct 18th, 3:30 PM

Task-Based Needs Analysis for Medical Spanish

MBSC Chancellor's Room

Task-Based Needs Analysis for Medical Spanish

Key Words: Medical Spanish, Spanish for Specific Purposes, Task-Based

Over the last thirty years, the popularity of Spanish for Specific Purposes (SSP) courses has surged at U.S. universities (Klee, 2015), highlighting the urgent need for research that can underpin effective teaching practices and material development. Efforts have been made to create research-based curricula for Business Spanish classes adopting a Task-Based Language Teaching approach, however, the medical field continues to be under-researched. This project revisits the studies carried out by Serafini and Torres (2015), and Martin and Adrada-Rafael (2017) in the area of Business Spanish and replicates them in the context of Medical Spanish courses. The main objective is twofold: 1) to carry out a needs analysis of Medical Spanish students, and 2) to create a semester-long curriculum for a Medical Spanish course. By performing a needs analysis to develop a task-based Medical Spanish curriculum, instructors are able to incorporate the perspective and experience of working professionals in the medical field, as well as design course content that is relevant for students and easily applied in a professional setting. The data collection for this project took place in three higher education institutions and consisted of three phases. In Phase 1, a small sample of medical professionals, students in health sciences, and instructors of Medical Spanish were asked to identify a list of real-life, non-linguistic tasks that need to be accomplished by someone working in the medical field. In Phase 2, a larger sample of students in health sciences answered a questionnaire where they rated the frequency and difficulty of each task identified during the first phase, on a 5-point Likert-scale. In Phase 3, researchers examined and classified the target tasks into the domains of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This classification informed the creation of major target task categories that served as the structure for the Medical Spanish curriculum and informed the design of course objectives and class materials.

Klee, C. A. (2015). Content-based programs and Spanish for the professions. In M. Lacorte (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of Hispanic applied linguistics (pp. 184–201). New York: Routledge.

Martin, A. & Adrada-Rafael, S. (2017). Business Spanish in the real world: A task-based needs analysis. L2 Journal, 9(1):39-61.

Serafini, E. J., & Torres, J. (2015). The utility of needs analysis for nondomain expert instructors in designing task‐based Spanish for the professions curricula. Foreign Language Annals, 48(3): 447–472.