Mo. Hassan et al., CONTRIBUTION OF ENGLISH-LANGUAGE TO THE LEARNING OF BASIC MEDICAL SCIENCES IN SULTAN-QABOOS-UNIVERSITY, Medical teacher, 17(3), 1995, pp. 277-282
The College of Medicine at Sultan Qaboos University has adopted Englis
h as the language of instruction though schooling in Oman is mostly in
Arabic. Students of this new medical college are facing learning diff
iculties in their basic medical sciences. This paper studies the impac
t of English language courses on students' performance in those subjec
ts. The 1990 cohort of 84 students joined the College of Medicine afte
r completing a 2-year programme in foundation sciences and English. A
major part of the basic medical sciences is taught in a coordinated ap
proach in two blocks. One block coordinates the teaching of cardiovasc
ular, respiratory and urinary systems (CVRUS), and the other coordinat
es the basic medical sciences disciplines in the alimentary system. Fi
nal examination results of the foundation and basic medical sciences c
ourses were correlated with English language using linear and multiple
regression analysis. While significant positive correlation was found
between results in English and the alimentary system and foundation s
ciences courses, results in the CVRUS were not correlated. This could
be a result of the structure of the English language course or the new
objectives and structure of the CVRUS course.