Academic Writing for Health Professions, Elementary Level. Third Edition
$40.00
Welcome to the third edition to Academic Writing for Health Professions: Elementary Level! This new edition is the product of extensive revision and evaluation, not only by myself and my students, but by the many instructors who, along with their students, have used the previous edition and have contributed valuable suggestions and comments.
PREFACE
Welcome to the third edition to Academic Writing for Health Professions: Elementary Level! This new edition is the product of extensive revision and evaluation, not only by myself and my students, but by the many instructors who, along with their students, have used the previous edition and have contributed valuable suggestions and comments. The success of the previous edition has been due, in large measure, to the honest and careful appraisal given by language instructors and their students.
Academic Writing for Health Professions: Elementary Level is designed for university students or professionals who are studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL) at an elementary level.
The underlying philosophy of the book is the author’s conviction that basic organizational skills and modes of communication need to be taught at a very early stage to all students, regardless of whether they are native or non-native speakers of a language. Putting off this crucial concept until grammatical mastery has been achieved results, in my view, in the acquiring of a narrow focus on language which becomes difficult to rectify later in students’ careers, when they are expected to produce samples of extended writing that communicate coherently.
To this end, the text adopts from the first an approach to meaningful writing using step-by-step explanations and exercises that guide the student towards the desired goal. This is done using six practical and academic writing purposes: Giving Instructions, Telling What Happened, Classifying, Explaining Cause and Effect, Comparing and Contrasting, and Describing a Mechanism or a Process.
The text is designed so that the six writing purposes and the general content of the units gradually increase in complexity. While some degree of control is of course essential in any teaching situation, a conscious attempt has been made to allow also for student creativity and individuality. This is done by beginning each unit with clear examples and controlled exercises to learn specific organization and grammar skills. By the second part of each unit, the control gives way to looser guidance. Students use the skills they have learned to plan and write compositions that move from carefully guided to unguided.
A typical unit opens with Objectives and a short Introduction discussing the writing purpose and pointing out its academic and practical use. This is followed by several Writing Tips for addressing the rhetorical purpose in question.
Next comes a section on Planning (in the form of an outline, an idea map, informal notes, a chart, or an information table), followed by an Example Composition illustrating in clear and simple language the unit’s rhetorical purpose. The topics are designed to be diverse, relevant, and interesting to EFL students undertaking medical courses: How to control external bleeding, sun stroke, hot compresses, causes of fainting, comparing and contrasting measles and rubella, how the respiratory system works, and so on.
A section on Functional Skills gives practice on logical relationships and other concepts related to the unit’s rhetorical purpose. This is followed by Organization Skills, which require students to actively work with introductions, main idea sentences, transitions, and conclusions, all of which are introduced in a simple and structured manner.
After that, the Grammar Skills and Punctuation Skills segments treat the grammatical structures and punctuation relevant to the writing purpose in question, and opportunities for controlled and freer practice are given.
At the end of each unit, a Guided Writing section provides students with an opportunity to consolidate what they have learned. Their writing is controlled by picture cues or information tables, and the guided composition is similar to the example composition in vocabulary and organizational principles.
CONTENTS
Unit 1 Giving Instructions
Unit 2 Telling What Happened:
Unit 3 Classifying
Unit 4 Explaining Cause and Effect
Unit 5 Comparing and Contrasting
Unit 6 Describing a Mechanism or a Process
Book information
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English for Health Sciences, Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate Level. Second Edition
English For Health Sciences -Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate Level! This new edition is the product of constant revision and evaluation, not only by me, but also by the many instructors who, along with their students, have used the previous edition and have sent in valuable suggestions and comments. The success of the previous edition has been due, in large measure, to the honest and careful appraisal given by instructors and their students.
English For Health Sciences - Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate
Level, is the second in a series of English language texts constructed for use in health colleges, institutes and adult English language-training programmes. The aim of the series is to prepare students to participate in medical science courses.
This text is structured at the lower intermediate level of students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). As with the first (elementary) text, it focuses on reading skills with the aims of facilitating the leap from basic English to academic English and preparing students to handle health science materials with confidence.
The topics have been selected from a wide range of authentic writings
including health-science curricula, medical journals, and textbooks to serve
as vehicles for developing reading with its associated skills in an interesting
and informative way. The rationale for selecting authentic materials is to ease
the students’ passage from the ‘safety’ of EFL English to confronting the
English of the ‘real world’ in a manner that makes students aware of the
control they can exercise, even with texts which are, at first sight, beyond
their level of language competence. Thus, despite the sometimes daunting
appearance of the readings, the tasks based on them are designed to be
within the students’ abilities to carry out. This encourages students to move
through the book with a growing sense of confidence and accomplishment
as they discover that they can find the main ideas and important details,
understand much of the new vocabulary without a dictionary, and successfully
apply critical thinking to their reading.
Unit Organization
Because the book’s primary purpose is to develop the reading
process, it offers a wide variety of exercises and activities directed at reading.
Each of the ten units consists of two parts, and each part is composed of
a brief pre-reading exercise and an exercise on skimming or scanning.
Following the reading itself, there are post-reading exercises that focus on
important reading skills that include:
Getting the main idea of a passage
Guessing meaning from context
Understanding reading structure
Understanding details
Finding topic sentences
Understanding cause and effect
Recognizing contextual reference
Understanding expressions and idioms
Understanding adjectival and noun phrases
Making an outline
Understanding stems and affixes
Using a dictionary
Discussing questions that relate the reading selection to the students’ own
lives, allowing for some conversation
Understanding comparison and contrast
Understanding general and specific information
Understanding classification
To the Teacher
Having some idea of the subject matter is clearly an important aspect
of successful reading. To this end, students need to be encouraged to look
at and discuss the pictures in the Before You Read and Getting Started
sections, and to attempt to answer the accompanying questions.
When tackling the reading selections themselves, students should read
silently. This increases reading speed and also closely parallels the established
approach to the reading of academic texts. Encouraging the students to
‘unhinge’ their minds from their lips, i.e. not to pronounce or silently mouth
words as they read, is an additional means of increasing one’s reading speed.
Not allowing dictionary use for the initial reading forces readers to try to
extract the meanings of words from their context in the passage. Stress the
importance of homing in on the main ideas of a reading passage.
As an alternate to this approach, you may occasionally wish to read
a passage aloud (or play a recording of it) while the students follow silently
in their books. Whichever approach is used, the passage should be read
through in full, without explanation.
The readings are followed by a variety of exercises in the After
Reading sections. These are intended to help students to consolidate, in
English, the very same skills they are assumed to possess in their native
language. Again, the emphasis is on grasping the main idea and guessing
meaning from context, a sometimes bewildering but ultimately rewarding
experience for many students who have developed a slavish reliance on their
dictionaries. They need to learn that trying to find out the exact meaning
of a word is not always necessary, and can even be counter-productive if
the word has subtly acquired a different shade of meaning in a new context.
Although students are instructed to re-read the selection after doing
the Guessing Meaning from Context exercises, after having completed
several units, you might have them mark up the passage as main ideas,
subordinate ideas, and supporting details after reading it just once. This is
an approach commonly followed in courses in tertiary education, where the
sheer volume of reading to be covered often limits the student to no more
than a single reading of a chapter. Should you decide on more than one
reading, try to restrict dictionary usage to a minimum, stressing it as a last
resort.
In the Getting the Main Idea section, students practise finding the
topic sentence of a paragraph or, for paragraphs with no topic sentence,
practise “adding up” details to work out the implied main idea.
In sections on rhetorical functions, i.e. general and specific
information, cause and effect, classification, comparison and contrast,
etc., students are given adequate practice to understand these functions, and
also they are recycled where appropriate.
The Building Vocabulary exercises can be assigned as homework.
Students should be given free rein in practising newly-acquired
vocabulary when they express their opinions in the Discussing the Reading
sections. This may be handled in a number of ways. For example:
- the teacher asks questions of the entire class. The advantage
of this approach is teacher control of the discussion, to direct
and add to it. (However, a common problem can arise here with
an unresponsive group of students who may be too embarrassed
to speak out.
- the students discuss answers in small groups. A representative
of each group then reports the group’s findings to the entire class.
For very shy students, pairs of student reporters may be
preferable.
- one selected question is chosen for a debate. The class is then
divided into two sides, the sides choose two teams, and then
all prepare points for their team.
English for Health Sciences, Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate Level. Second Edition
English For Health Sciences -Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate Level! This new edition is the product of constant revision and evaluation, not only by me, but also by the many instructors who, along with their students, have used the previous edition and have sent in valuable suggestions and comments. The success of the previous edition has been due, in large measure, to the honest and careful appraisal given by instructors and their students.
English For Health Sciences - Reading Skills, Lower Intermediate
Level, is the second in a series of English language texts constructed for use in health colleges, institutes and adult English language-training programmes. The aim of the series is to prepare students to participate in medical science courses.
This text is structured at the lower intermediate level of students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). As with the first (elementary) text, it focuses on reading skills with the aims of facilitating the leap from basic English to academic English and preparing students to handle health science materials with confidence.
The topics have been selected from a wide range of authentic writings
including health-science curricula, medical journals, and textbooks to serve
as vehicles for developing reading with its associated skills in an interesting
and informative way. The rationale for selecting authentic materials is to ease
the students’ passage from the ‘safety’ of EFL English to confronting the
English of the ‘real world’ in a manner that makes students aware of the
control they can exercise, even with texts which are, at first sight, beyond
their level of language competence. Thus, despite the sometimes daunting
appearance of the readings, the tasks based on them are designed to be
within the students’ abilities to carry out. This encourages students to move
through the book with a growing sense of confidence and accomplishment
as they discover that they can find the main ideas and important details,
understand much of the new vocabulary without a dictionary, and successfully
apply critical thinking to their reading.
Unit Organization
Because the book’s primary purpose is to develop the reading
process, it offers a wide variety of exercises and activities directed at reading.
Each of the ten units consists of two parts, and each part is composed of
a brief pre-reading exercise and an exercise on skimming or scanning.
Following the reading itself, there are post-reading exercises that focus on
important reading skills that include:
Getting the main idea of a passage
Guessing meaning from context
Understanding reading structure
Understanding details
Finding topic sentences
Understanding cause and effect
Recognizing contextual reference
Understanding expressions and idioms
Understanding adjectival and noun phrases
Making an outline
Understanding stems and affixes
Using a dictionary
Discussing questions that relate the reading selection to the students’ own
lives, allowing for some conversation
Understanding comparison and contrast
Understanding general and specific information
Understanding classification
To the Teacher
Having some idea of the subject matter is clearly an important aspect
of successful reading. To this end, students need to be encouraged to look
at and discuss the pictures in the Before You Read and Getting Started
sections, and to attempt to answer the accompanying questions.
When tackling the reading selections themselves, students should read
silently. This increases reading speed and also closely parallels the established
approach to the reading of academic texts. Encouraging the students to
‘unhinge’ their minds from their lips, i.e. not to pronounce or silently mouth
words as they read, is an additional means of increasing one’s reading speed.
Not allowing dictionary use for the initial reading forces readers to try to
extract the meanings of words from their context in the passage. Stress the
importance of homing in on the main ideas of a reading passage.
As an alternate to this approach, you may occasionally wish to read
a passage aloud (or play a recording of it) while the students follow silently
in their books. Whichever approach is used, the passage should be read
through in full, without explanation.
The readings are followed by a variety of exercises in the After
Reading sections. These are intended to help students to consolidate, in
English, the very same skills they are assumed to possess in their native
language. Again, the emphasis is on grasping the main idea and guessing
meaning from context, a sometimes bewildering but ultimately rewarding
experience for many students who have developed a slavish reliance on their
dictionaries. They need to learn that trying to find out the exact meaning
of a word is not always necessary, and can even be counter-productive if
the word has subtly acquired a different shade of meaning in a new context.
Although students are instructed to re-read the selection after doing
the Guessing Meaning from Context exercises, after having completed
several units, you might have them mark up the passage as main ideas,
subordinate ideas, and supporting details after reading it just once. This is
an approach commonly followed in courses in tertiary education, where the
sheer volume of reading to be covered often limits the student to no more
than a single reading of a chapter. Should you decide on more than one
reading, try to restrict dictionary usage to a minimum, stressing it as a last
resort.
In the Getting the Main Idea section, students practise finding the
topic sentence of a paragraph or, for paragraphs with no topic sentence,
practise “adding up” details to work out the implied main idea.
In sections on rhetorical functions, i.e. general and specific
information, cause and effect, classification, comparison and contrast,
etc., students are given adequate practice to understand these functions, and
also they are recycled where appropriate.
The Building Vocabulary exercises can be assigned as homework.
Students should be given free rein in practising newly-acquired
vocabulary when they express their opinions in the Discussing the Reading
sections. This may be handled in a number of ways. For example:
- the teacher asks questions of the entire class. The advantage
of this approach is teacher control of the discussion, to direct
and add to it. (However, a common problem can arise here with
an unresponsive group of students who may be too embarrassed
to speak out.
- the students discuss answers in small groups. A representative
of each group then reports the group’s findings to the entire class.
For very shy students, pairs of student reporters may be
preferable.
- one selected question is chosen for a debate. The class is then
divided into two sides, the sides choose two teams, and then
all prepare points for their team.