Педагогические науки/5. Современные методы преподавания

Сорокина О.Н., Ломанова И.В.

Карагандинский государственный медицинский университет

The communicative approach in teaching of a professional oriented foreign language in a medical school

Development and establishment of a modern healthcare professional, who owns advanced domestic and foreign medical technologies, largely depend on how quickly he is able to take professional - oriented information not only on the native, but also foreign languages. This raises the problem of medical students training with the greatest comprehension of information of a special nature.

Improving the quality of teaching in medical education necessitates the transition from information reporting methods and forms of education to active and interactive ones. The acquisition of communicative competence of future physicians in educational and professional spheres promotes intensification of educational process, improves the quality of the doctor.

Challenges to higher education orients a foreign language learning to not the passive language skills (proficiency), consisting of the ability to read and translate the literature in their specialty, but to the practical use of a foreign language as a means of communication in the professional sphere. The situation in language training is not currently considered satisfactory.

Compulsory basic course of a foreign language for the students of our medical university is 90 hours of in-class learning. While according to the Foreign Service Institute at least 720 hours of in-class learning are needed for European languages learning on the communicative level. That is why the optimization of training within the allotted hours remains the important unsolved problem. Another feature of the foreign language teaching in the medical school is the fact that almost a third of the students begin English learning from the elementary level. A foreign language teaching of the medical students at the initial stage is a particularly difficult task. Deficiency of communicative competence in students is becoming a serious obstacle in the way of their intellectual development, interpersonal relations formation and studying of the standards of Western civilization. Lack of attention to the development of the communication culture among the students from nonlinguistic institutions of higher education leads to, on the one hand, illiterate speech of students even in their native language, which impedes communication, on the other hand, to the significant reduction of communication opportunities for trainees.

For medical students the subject as "foreign language" is not basic or fundamental, and therefore to make the learning process more effective and purposeful the teacher must be clear about the role and place of a foreign language in the life of a future specialist. A characteristic condition and methodological feature of the foreign language teaching in the medical school is the lack of the natural language environment. We have to admit that to prepare students for participation in the process of foreign language communication is necessary in the communicative conditions created during a lesson.

Therefore communication training brings to the forefront. Earlier in nonlinguistic institutions of higher education reading accounted for 50% of the total, and speaking accounted for 25%, nowadays this ratio changes in favor of the latter in the modern communicative approach.

Topical issue in this context is the realization of the idea of combining the two tasks: listening teaching and focus on a particular sphere of communication. With this approach the foreign language learning is based on listening comprehension, which is a natural way to language acquisition. Perceiving it by ear, trainees from the beginning immerse in the target language, they form the mechanisms of perception and understanding of speech. As a result of the specially organized systematic practice in listening trainees develop communication skills of listening, providing access to foreign language communication. Communication is not possible without the perception and understanding of speech of an interlocutor by ear. Therefore targeted development of skills and abilities of listening is the main purpose of training at the early stage.

In the approach with a focus on a particular area of communication the process of the foreign language learning is close to the process of professional communication, which interrelates with the main professional activity. In the professional activity of the future doctors the following communication situations may be identified: consultations, meetings, discussions, work on joint projects, presentations, demonstration of new methods of diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and so on.

In the process of training oriented to the specific communicational spheres (and the situation) the main emphasis is on the use of the appropriate themes. Training is carried out on the materials of the real dialogic texts. For this the language tools necessary to implement the communication on the theme are chosen. The selected material is worked through item by item and is used by students in their own statements.

Thus, communicative competence is the ability to use language as a means of communication, to carry out speech activity in accordance with the goals, objectives and situation of communication within a particular sphere of activity.

The researchers (Zimnyaya I.A.) identify a number of competences that contribute to the development of communicative abilities of students, i.e., communicative competence:

1) linguistic (language) competence (components of which are phonological, lexical and grammatical competences), i.e. the knowledge of vocabulary units and possession of certain formal rules in which the lexical units are converted into the meaningful statements;

2) sociolinguistic (speech) competence, i.e. the knowledge of phrasing methods by means of language, the ability to use and transform the language forms according to the situation of communication (the choice of linguistic forms determined by the context);

3) socio-cultural competence, i.e. the knowledge of national and cultural features of the target language, a certain degree of familiarity with the socio-cultural context in which the language is used (the rules of verbal and nonverbal behavior in the typical situations of communication, the etiquette features of the native speakers);

4) social (pragmatic) competence, i.e. the desire and ability to interact with others in the process of communication, the ability to cope with the situations in the society choosing the most effective way of expression;

5) discursive competence, i.e. the ability to understand and achieve coherence of individual statements in the meaningful communication models;

6) strategic competence, i.e. the ability to choose effective strategies for mastering the material and methods of its use for a variety of communicative tasks;

7) subject competence, i.e. the information awareness on the topic of communication that allows to feel confident in terms of content of communication in a particular field;

8) professional competence, i.e. the set of linguistic knowledge and speech skills related to the specifics of communication within a particular profession.

The linguistic (language) competence undoubtedly takes the leading position in the formation of communicative abilities of the students because without a good knowledge of the language system the function of communicative competence is not possible, as well as implementation of speech communication in all types and forms of its manifestation is impossible, i.e. the process of communication itself is becoming impossible.

Oral speech is a two-way process which consists of the ability to speak a foreign language and the ability to understand speech of others. It appears in two forms as monologue and dialogue.

With the improvement of oral speech it is necessary to pay more attention to the monologue speech. Monologic utterance, as we know, is a series of coherent declarative sentences. A detailed statement containing more detailed analysis of the subject matter, as well as the speaker's own attitude to the subject of the discussion suggests a higher level of formation of the speech skills. The monologue form of communication assumes awareness in ways of presentation, as a description, narration, message, reasoning, and proving. And this, in turn, necessitates the formation the following communicative skills in the students: the ability to describe, explain, inform, explain and prove. The professionally-oriented text should be used for monologic utterance teaching of the students of nonlinguistic faculties.

The dialogic speech feature is obligatory presence of different character issues. Dialogue includes various phrases and accord combined them. To teach dialogic speech means to teach conversational exchange of different nature, but not just questions and answers. Phrases are twofold: encouraging conversation and a reaction to the speech of the conversation partner. Dialogic speech includes:

- the ability to use freely certain clichés inherent in this form of speech;

- the ability to understand the speech of an interlocutor;

- the ability to respond quickly to a statement of an interlocutor;

- the ability to continue the conversation, i.e. make such remarks which will make an interlocutor respond to the remark [1, 37].

The main task of the students in understanding and perception of monologue speech is to determine the range of events, the narrative thread, linking the main idea and important details of the messages, etc. The perception of dialogic nature of speech is complicated by the fact that in this speech there are two or more persons who speak in different voices with different pace of speech. On this basis, it can be stated that when teaching listening comprehension of foreign speech in nonlinguistic universities training should be started with speech of monological character, and then it is gradually moved on to dialogic speech listening.

Thus, the communicative competence in the modern conditions is becoming no less important component of professional qualification than their own professional knowledge and skills. In connection with this professionally-oriented education including traditional and communicative components is a priority in teaching a foreign language in the nonlinguistic universities generally and particularly in medical ones and promotes the formation of the higher-level professionals.

Bibliography

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