Strategies and approaches for teaching and learning of medical terminology

English is accepted as the language instruction of different sciences and technologies. It is distinguished uniquely from the other global languages, because it borrows freely and constantly from other languages (i.e. loan words), for instance, there are a lot of Arabic words introduce(d) from time to time not only in general English domain, but also in specialized areas such as medicine, pharmacology, etc. Obviously, we can witness Arabic terms as alcohol, alkali, alembic, naphtha, tartar, al-chemy, el-exir and so on. Many other languages enrich the English globe by a huge number of loans in different fields, exemplification, a lot of medical terminology or lexemes are originated from Latin and Greek because they were very popular as English widely used nowadays. Also, French, German and many other languages played and still play a very important role in supporting and promoting the phenomenon of English .Hence, English can be defined as not a language in its own right, but it is a collection of overlapping languages .Interestingly, many words transmitted to English by indirect way, that means passed from one language to another language then to English.

Some words have entered English, not by direct contact with the language which is its source, but indirectly through an intervening language. In this way many of the earlier Italian Loans come through French, the earlier loan words from the east come through Latin, many of them having already passed through Greek before reaching Latin Words travelled thousands of miles, westward from Asia to Europe, across Europe from east to west and from south to north, all round the Mediterranean from nation to nation and from generation to generation.

There is no doubt then English like any other languages serves the native speakers with a wide range of implementations in different disciplines, but it is striking to note that it serves the non-natives of English with an equally wide range of use as it is international and can be used in various fields of sciences, commerce, trade and communication between the different states of the world. English is used in three varieties. First language, second language and foreign language, for the learners of English as second language and foreign language, English is implemented in two ways: English for general purposes and English for specific purposes. English for general purpose provides an unlimited range of language which can be applied for various purposes without identification of particular needs or specific people Whereas, English for specific purpose concentrates on a restricted use of language which is designed for specific needs of a particular group of learners for example English for medical studies, English for technicians, English for airlines employees, English for agricultural learners. English for specific purposes is one of the principal offshoots that has emerged in the last few decades and has been internationally accepted as the language of instruction of science and technology. In the last few years, the phenomenon of learning English for specific purposes has begun to appear more and more frequently throughout the process of English language teaching.

Unquestionably, this has become a major activity in today's highly automated world. Medical English is a branch of English for specific purpose in which it is designed to meet the entire prerequisites of medical studies and profession. Medical English is a branch of English for specific purpose in which it is designed to meet the entire prerequisites of medical studies and profession. Medical lexicon, which is the accepted international terminology of the discipline and the profession, is the prime need of the English for specific. The present research paper is an attempt to investigate the difficulties encounter the learners of medicine in understanding the medical terms and providing strategies, techniques and approaches for comprehending the hidden ideas in such complicated terminology.

Every profession or field has its own jargon, a registered or a specialized language that allows for quick and efficient communication smoothly between members of the same discipline .Practitioners of medicine and health sciences have their own jargon or particular language for medicine .Medical terminology is a specialised language used by learners, specialists and experts of medicine and health sciences. It is regarded as one of the most difficult language among all the other specialized languages in different fields. Medical language includes very complicated long terms which seem difficult to sound, spell, remember and even understand. Medical writing relies very heavily on a specialised vocabulary. Most of these words cannot be usefully translated or even defined .Medical writing is often so difficult to understand, it is necessary to approach it from a variety of angles if one is to understand the ideas hidden in long words and even longer and complex terms. Further, medical language provides unfamiliar and strange words, for example some words contain triple (o) together as in hysterosaplingooophorectomy and others start in double (o) as in oophorectomy .

Furthermore , the grammatical patterns in medical context are different , for instance the plural is formed by another way different from that one in an ordinary English , many nouns do not add "-s" or "-es" in the plural , but change in vowels or the last part of the words such as amoeba, amoebae , bacterium, bacteria, phenomenon, phenomena , protozoon, protozoa, fungus, fungi, curriculum, curricula .

As preliminary for this section, it is important to explain what is meant by medical terminology. The word "medical" is an adjective, which means areas / contexts / settings of medicine. Terminology is divided into three parts: term- = word, -in- = inside (-o-, linker) and – logy = a branch of study. Therefore, it can be deduced that the two terms mean a branch of science, which is concerned with the study, or understanding what is hidden inside the medical words. There are different techniques or strategies and methods or approaches, which can be used to understand the meanings of the medical terms and comprehending the ideas beyond such complicated lexemes. The focus will be on the most important strategies and approaches, which may help in learning and teaching medical terms.

As it has been pointed out earlier that it seems not easy to learn the different source language or even Greek and Latin, which offer the largest chunk of medical lexicon. A short cut to the necessary information is inevitable and, therefore, certain fundamentals of vocabulary acquisition and linguistic procedure of word formation and word analysis have to be learnt and fruitfully utilized. New strategies have to be formed and past techniques have to be reviewed in the interest of medical terminology and in the interest of effective teaching or learning process. One of the most effective strategies in learning or teaching medical terminology is breaking down each term into small meaningful units. It is commonly known that breaking down indicates destruction or collapse, which means harmful effects e.g. breaking down a building, piece of furniture, white blood cells, antibody protection, etc. But there is an exception in the case of breaking down the loan items into parts to explain what each element of a word refer to, when collecting such segments of the small parts leading to comprehend what notion is hidden inside such items. The learners of medicine and health sciences will be exposed to handle long and apparently, difficult scientific terms like those mentioned in. In the beginning , it may seem impossible to learn how to pronounce , spell and memories these complicated terms and their meanings. The learners of medical discipline need to know the techniques for understanding the meanings of the confused forms. One of the useful strategies which can be applied is breaking down the loan into meaningful constituents, the meaning of each element listed separately and combing the meanings of all the units leading to comprehend the definition or the meaning of the whole terms .Once these elements have been mastered, there is no difficultly in discovering the meaning of the compounded medical terms , no matter how long it may be , for these elements over and over again in all kinds of the words used in the field of the study. As it has been pointed previously, this study investigates the difficulties encounter the English for specific purpose learners of medicine in understanding unfamiliar, long and complicated terminology. It provides modest insights for both learners and practitioners. In respect to the learning process, some strategies are displayed such as breaking down the terms into meaningful elements, then combining such constituents leading to comprehend the definition of the whole term, another strategy was explained that is identifying the word-parts, also removing the additional parts pre-and post can help in understanding and learning new medical lexemes. Some terms cannot be broken down, they are considered as one mass, because they are named after persons, plants or animal, memorization is the preferable procedure for learning such vocabularies. Regarding the teaching process, the most appropriate and effective approaches are suggested such as diagnostic approach, generative model for acquisition medical vocabularies, using L1 in teaching L2 and other collective methods are provided.