English Language Teaching Work Force at Iran’s Medical Universities a Descriptive Study

Background and Purpose: This study intends to identify the numbers and some characteristics of the teachers of various English courses offered at medical universities affiliated to the Ministry of Health during the second semester of the academic year 2005-6.Methods: The methods used in this research were “gathering existing data”, and “descriptive study”. The research was conducted by sending a questionnaire to 41 medical universities. The data from 40 questionnaires received, were arranged in 5 tables.Results: It was found that during the semester studied, in all, about 1795,5 credits of different courses of English were taught by 254 teachers including 52 credits of pre-university English, 1083,5 credits of general English and 660 credits of specialized English(ESP). Out of the total of 1795,5 credits,815,5 credits (45.5%) were taught by the English teachers of the language departments of the same universities (64 teachers); 612 credits (34) by visiting English teachers (96 teachers); and the rest, about 368 credits (20.5%) by teachers with different medical or paramedical specialties, being faculty members of different medical or paramedical departments of the same universities (94 teachers).Conclusion: There is a clear lack of English lecturers graduated in English language. Since our goal of teaching English language in universities of medicine is that students be competent in understanding the meaning of original text and research articles and communicate well in international academic circles we need faculties that are specially trained for teaching English language. The number and the quality of English teachers in universities of medicine should be improved.