A Moodle-based blended-learning approach for teaching English for medical purposes

In this globally connected world, English has become increasingly important for Japanese medical professionals. However, the curricula at medical schools in Japan are so extensive that the time allocated for English classes is usually very limited, which means those classes often do not have the depth or scope to improve medical students’ English communication skills to the level necessary for their future career as medical professionals. The authors of this paper have integrated e-learning activities created by Moodle, a popular open source learning management system, into their Medical English classes at School of Medicine, Shimane University, Japan. The main objectives of integrating these Moodle-based activities are firstly to introduce the concept of ‘blended-learning’ to students, secondly to create a ‘learning community’ where students would be able to collaboratively work on tasks both within and outside scheduled learning hours, and thirdly to give learners with more opportunities to practice their English skills by providing them with on-going access to a range of useful learning resources through Moodle. This paper outlines how the authors designed instructional procedures and integrated Moodle-based blended-learning environments for their English classes. It also reports on their students’ evaluations of their e-learning environment as measured by the questionnaire completed at the end of the classes