PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEEDS ANALYSIS OF FACULTY MEMBERS AND POSTGRADUATE ASSISTANTS AT FACULTY OF MEDICINE

As it is the case in many other majors, the need to become proficient in English is crucial for medical professionals mainly because they need to keep their knowledge and skills repositories up-to-date which mostly comes from following recent changes and developments in the profession both in and out of the country. In this regard, as the language of science, English also dominates the literature in medicine. For this reason, to what extent medical professionals need English language skills both professionally and personally is a matter of concern for language teaching professionals. With this in mind, the current study examines English language needs of faculty members (FMs) and postgraduate assistants (PGAs) working at faculty of medicine at a state university in Turkey. 29 PGAs and 26 FMs from various departments responded to a 26-item, 4-point Likert scale assessing their needs on four macro skills; listening, reading, speaking, and writing complemented by micro skills. The results mainly revealed that both on a professional and personal basis, the FMs obviously had stronger perceptions regarding their language needs than the PGAs did. Additionally, both parties’ perceptions regarding their personal language needs were slightly lower. Thus, the results could indicate that personal and inner drives have influence on language needs. This further suggests the need to take personal motivations into account when planning course content