Yemeni medicine students’ competence in medical English collocations

Abstract

This article focuses on Yemeni medicine students’ competence in medical English collocations and the potential challenges impeding their competence in medical English collocations. A mixed quantitative and qualitative approach was adopted by means of two tools: a collocational receptive-productive competence test and a closed-ended questionnaire. The results reveal Yemeni medicine students’ incompetence in medical English collocations, with an overall 30.38% of correct answers in the receptive test and 34.5% in the productive test. EMP teachers’ insufficient awareness of medical collocations, EMP syllabuses disregard of medical collocations, adoption of traditional methods in teaching EMP, and students’ unawareness of the importance of medical collocations are listed as the main challenges hindering students’ competence in medical English collocations.