Japanese medical professionals are increasingly using English when presenting papers at conferences and communicating with medical staff and patients. Since 2008, the authors have been trying to improve overall impact of their medical English lessons at Shimane University, Japan, by the efficient use of e-learning (Iwata, Tamaki & Clayton, 2011). At the same time, the authors have been conducting surveys to investigate their students’ needs and readiness for e-learning as these are crucial prerequisites for successful implementation of e-learning (Govindasamy, 2001).

Results from 5-year-long surveys on students’ needs for e-learning show that most of the medical students prefer to use computers or the Internet for their English study. Results on computer competence to investigate students’ technical readiness for e-learning show that a majority of students are confident and competent in storing information on computer or disk and searching for information using a Web browser. However, student’s technical knowledge was rather weak with a significant number of them feeling uncomfortable and incompetent when trying to reconnect to the internet after being disconnected and when an error message occurs. This indicates that the provision of on-going technical support could be regarded as a crucial service to enable continuing success of learners in an e-learning environment.