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A question has come from one of our members in Vietnam who asks:

I am a teacher of English at Thai Binh University of Medicine and Pharmacy . I am wondering the method of teaching English for students who are major in medicine and are uninterested in English. How to motivate them to learn English. In addition, how to assess and evaluate their English ability and performance. Kindly give me advice and share experience for me.

Anyone should feel free to reply and offer advice but I’ll start with my own:

We all probably have students who aren’t very interested in English. I certainly do. But we know that they are interested in medicine — and this is the key! If I make my English tasks clinical tasks — for example where the goal is taking a patient’s history, developing and presenting a differential diagnosis., or giving a case report/presentation, the students who don’t particularly like English will still enjoy those tasks. Why? Because they will become cognitively engaged with the medical task. 

As a result, English is seen merely as a tool to carrying out a more interesting (and to them, relevant) clinical task. But as they carry out the task they are still absorbing English forms. Moreover, completing the clinical task will often give them a sense of achievement and help them come to appreciate, if not enjoy, English.