Developing medical English writing skills through the use of verb collocations

Within the medical science context and after the new legislations and government instructions recently issued, the mastery of English language use has become one of the most important learning objectives within the tertiary education context. Yet, when it comes to pedagogic applications within English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) context; a few questions are raised regarding the very content of the syllabus and relevant methodologies when approaching the teaching of Medical English. The present paper aims to shed light on the teaching of Medical English through the use of verb collocations. The paper displays the different steps and results of action research that targeted 2nd-year medical science students who were involved in medical English training and who sat for different tests within both summative and formative assessment orientations. The results show that the sample exhibits a relatively average level of collocational competence while their vocabulary knowledge tends to be inadequate translation activities. The researchers suggest the use of electronic corpora as a reliable technique that can help enhance students’ collocational competence.