Towards Humanizing ELT: Revisiting the Need for English in the Medical Context in Yemen

Departing from recent calls for humanizing English language teaching and the findings of prior research, this study delved into medical English in the Yemeni context with intent to update ESP. 140 informants in the academic and occupational milieus were recruited to conduct present-situation analysis (PSA) and target-situation analysis (TSA). Data were collected via questionnaires and structured interviews. Although the profile of needs the study has come up with is quite similar to previous findings, the present endeavor shows that the need for English in PSA and TSA vary considerably. The diversity of needs justifies integrating academic skills with subject-specific skills. All skills are more or less of the same importance so that a training in all the language aspects is proposed with an emphasis on aspects related to medical career. Due to faulty ESP programs and in order to compensate shortcomings of the formal instruction in the local context, the study brought to the core some ideas to humanize ESP and to breathe life into aspects such as informal learning, teacher autonomy, and personalized learning through technology