Effectiveness of Medical French training in developing communicative competence among health professional students in Ghana

When a Ghanaian nurse leans over a patient’s bedside and asks in careful French where the pain began, the success of that exchange may depend less on the nurse’s clinical training than on a language course taken years earlier. A new study from Ghana has put that premise to a rigorous test, and the results reveal a striking paradox: students overwhelmingly believe Medical French is essential to their careers, yet they finish the programme with little confidence that they can actually use it when it matters most.

The research, published in Frontiers in Education, examined how effectively Medical French is being taught to future health professionals in Ghana, a country that shares borders with French-speaking Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Burkina Faso and sits at the heart of a West African region where patients and clinicians cross linguistic boundaries daily. Led by Fiawomorm Kofi Fiagbe of the University of Cape Coast, together with colleagues from the University for Development Studies, the team surveyed 176 students training in General Nursing, Midwifery, Pharmacy, and Allied Health programmes at a public university, where French has been part of the health curriculum since 2015.

What makes the study technically notable is its evaluation framework. The researchers applied Stufflebeam’s CIPP model, a decision-oriented educational evaluation system that dissects a programme into four components: Context, the needs the programme is meant to address; Input, the resources available for implementation; Process, how teaching actually unfolds in the classroom; and Product, the outcomes learners achieve. The team translated this architecture into a structured questionnaire administered electronically, with items rated on a five-point Likert scale. A mean score below 3.00 was interpreted as low effectiveness, while 3.00 or above indicated moderate to high effectiveness. Responses were analyzed in SPSS using descriptive statistics, with item-level reporting deliberately chosen over composite scores so that distinctions between different features of the programme would not be lost.

The Context findings were unambiguous. Every one of the ten utility items scored above the scale midpoint, with means ranging from 3.19 to 3.92. The highest rating went to the statement that French is essential for health professionals working in Ghana’s border regions, endorsed by 67.5 percent of respondents. Close behind were claims that French training would improve communication with patients from neighboring Francophone countries and contribute to better regional integration in West African healthcare delivery. Students also saw French proficiency as a route to employment with international health organizations and as an asset for cross-border disease control efforts, a concern sharpened by the memory of the Ebola epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which demanded coordinated multilingual responses across the Economic Community of West African States.

Then came the Input findings, and the picture darkened. Nine of the ten resource-availability items fell below the midpoint. Funding for international or regional internships received the lowest mean of the entire study, 2.53, with more than half of respondents disagreeing that such funding existed. Structured plans for integrating immersion experiences into the curriculum scored 2.71, and institutional support for faculty and student exchanges with Francophone health institutions scored 2.77. Even access to teaching materials, clinical practice opportunities with Francophone patients, and community-based internships in border regions all hovered just below 3.00. Technology and e-learning platforms were the only resource to edge above the midpoint, at 3.06, and even there opinion split almost evenly, with 35.7 percent agreeing the resources were adequate and 36.3 percent disagreeing.

The Process findings landed in between. Students rated the teaching strategies moderately positively, with all seven items above the midpoint but none exceeding 3.31. The best-rated strategies were frequent opportunities to speak, listen, read, and write in French, and tasks designed to be both educational and enjoyable, each endorsed by roughly 43 percent of respondents. Role-plays simulating doctor–patient interactions, peer learning through pair and group work, and instructors checking understanding and adapting pace all received means between 3.24 and 3.29. But the use of real-life clinical scenarios, arguably the most consequential strategy for building clinical communicative competence, received the lowest mean at 3.02, with disagreement slightly more common than agreement. Students encountered communicative activities, in other words, but not consistently the authentic clinical situations that specialized language pedagogy demands.

The Product findings exposed the consequence of that gap. When asked about their ability to interact with Francophone patients, students expressed uncertainty rather than confidence. Confidence in communicating basic medical information received the lowest mean, 2.90, with 37.8 percent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing against only 25.5 percent agreeing. Vocabulary for explaining medical procedures scored 2.91, taking patient histories 2.94, and giving medication instructions 2.96, all below the midpoint. Neutral responses were strikingly common, reaching 37.2 percent for basic interpretation and translation. The authors emphasize that these measures capture self-reported preparation rather than demonstrated French proficiency, but the pattern is telling: the programme’s graduates do not yet feel equipped for the clinical encounters the programme exists to prepare them for.

The researchers interpret this pattern as what they call a utility-capacity-competence gap. Students value the programme, but institutions lack the infrastructure to implement it effectively, and learners therefore fail to develop the communicative self-efficacy that would translate perceived value into clinical capability. Drawing on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, they argue that confidence grows through mastery experiences, and that limited immersion and scarce real-life practice prevent students from accumulating them. The findings also align with Gardner’s instrumental motivation model: students are driven by practical benefits such as career advancement and clinical effectiveness, but motivation alone cannot guarantee language acquisition without adequate input, practice, and institutional support. Fullan’s educational change theory reinforces the diagnosis, since successful curriculum innovation requires alignment between recognized vision, available capacity, and institutional commitment, and here the vision is strong while capacity and institutionalization remain weak.

The clinical stakes of these gaps extend across the entire patient-care pathway. Language discordance affects nurses and midwives during history-taking, symptom assessment, health education, informed consent, and maternal and neonatal care instructions; pharmacists during medication histories, prescription clarification, counselling, and dosage explanations; and physicians during diagnosis, treatment explanation, and shared decision-making. Evidence from Ghana indicates that Francophone patients have experienced delayed consultations, additional costs from poor diagnosis, and fears of serious medical errors when communication breaks down. International research adds that language barriers can compromise the exchange of clinically important information and increase risks to patient safety, undermining trust, participation, and adherence. The authors argue that French instruction should therefore be repositioned as a core clinical communication competency rather than an optional supplementary subject, moving beyond general conversational proficiency toward functional Medical French tailored to authentic professional situations.

The study’s recommendations are correspondingly concrete. The authors call for curriculum reforms emphasizing experiential learning, clinical immersion, and cross-border partnerships, including simulation, role-play, problem-based learning, hospital-based communication tasks, and supervised interaction with French-speaking patients. They urge stronger collaboration between universities, ministries of health, and regional educational bodies, and partnerships with Francophone universities and hospitals that could facilitate student exchanges, immersion programmes, and internships. Policymakers, they suggest, should consider embedding bilingual competencies into national healthcare training standards and professional accreditation frameworks. The study is limited by its reliance on self-reported measures, its convenience sample, and its cross-sectional design, and the authors recommend future work using CEFR-aligned proficiency assessments, longitudinal designs, and direct observation of patient–student interactions. But the central message stands: in a region where free movement is a founding principle, the ability to ask a patient, in their own language, where it hurts is not a luxury. It is patient safety.

Subject of Research: Effectiveness of Medical French training in developing communicative competence among health professional students in Ghana

Article Title: Effectiveness of Medical French training in developing communicative competence among health professional students in Ghana

Article References: Fiagbe, F. K., Fiadzawoo, J. K., Daberou, E. M., Slippe, D. P., & Nyamekye, E. (2026). Effectiveness of Medical French training in developing communicative competence among health professional students in Ghana. Frontiers in Education, 11, Article 1965775. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1965775

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1965775

Keywords: Effectiveness, Medical, French, training, developing, communicative, competence, health, professional, students, Ghana, scientific research