How Much Latin Terminology Education Is Enough? The Views of Students

Latin is a common language of science fields in the world such as medicine, biology, pharmacy and agriculture. However, this common language brings about difficulties at the same time. Performing understanding of a subject scientifically with terms the meanings of which are unknown causes difficulties. For this reason, it’s necessary to emphasize on eliminating difficulties due to this common language Latin. The aim of this study is to assess the students’ views towards biological and anatomical sciences terminology with Latin origin and how they perceive the difficulties of learning the new terms. In 2011-2012 education year spring academic term, a questionnaire was applied to totally 431 students including 141 2 , 3 , 4 and 5 class students nd rd th th of Biology Teaching (Faculty of Education), 116 1 and 2 class students of Veterinary Faculty and 174 1 and st nd st 2 class students of Medicine Faculty. 8 open-ended questions were asked to students. The questions were nd related with difficulties in Latin education, styles of Latin learning, necessity of Latin terminology and effect of knowing English. The results were evaluated in terms of frequency and percentage. According to the results, students opined about having difficulty in lectures due to Latin, necessity of giving Latin terminology or necessity of new techniques against rote learning.