Agnessa Tomashevs’ka
Bukovinian State Medical University, Ukraine
Promoting Oral Communication Skills into Nursing Students’ ESL Instruction

Nowadays the modern foreign languages research practice defines the communicative model of teaching as leading approach in terms of the students’ ESL proficiency. It has become apparent in the recent years that education programs about language learning and language teaching have been changing in some fundamental ways and promoting speaking skills has become increasingly important. Central to this changes has been the recognition by educators and researchers that "communicative competence" entails not solely grammatical accuracy but also a knowledge of sociocultural rules of appropriateness, discourse norms, and strategies for ensuring that a communication is understood.

Our special attention was focused on exploring the basic theories of the second language researchers, who during the 1970’s and early 1980's have already emphasized the role of interaction and communication. The second language researchers Hymes (1972,1979), Holliday (1973) were among the first to use the term communicative competence. For Hymes, the ability to speak competently not only demands knowing the grammatical rules of a language, but also knowing what to say to whom in what circumstances and how to say it. In his view, “There are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless”.

Canale (1986) and Swain (1984) proposed the schema of communicative language teaching, which includes four theoretically posited dimensions: grammatical or linguistic competence, sociocultural competence, discourse competence - the ability to sustain coherent discourse with another speaker, and strategic competence - the means by which learners deal with potential breakdowns in communication.

In the paper "Some Fundamental Ideas" Earl Stevick (1957), assessing the role of communication in the acquisition of communicative competence stated: "Hearing before speaking, speaking before reading, reading before writing".

Paulstan (1974) in the paper “Linguistic and Communicative Competence” discussed the potential of role-playing and problem-solving activities since they motivate communication, allow students to play a variety of roles, and thus provide for practice in many different uses of language.

Long (1974) has pointed out especially careful attention needs to be paid to the activities performed by students in groups. Here, materials have a vital role to play. It seems to be possible, for example, to structure simulation exercises of various kinds so as to facilitate the adoption by students of roles with which are associated the communicative functions of language it is intended that they learn.

As suggested by Barnes (1973), the use of small group work is often advocated as the “solution” to the problem since perhaps its most obvious quality is the facility it offers for active participation by a number of students simultaneously.

Anne Lazaraton (1987) has organized oral skill activities into distinct types: drills, or linquistically structured activities, performance activities, participation activities, and observation activities.

In the paper “Learning to Speak with Style” Andersen (1977) insisted that the more we study speech in natural settings, the more we find systematic variation within every speaker, reflecting who the speaker is addressing, where the speaker is, what the social event may be, the topic of discussion, and the social relations communicated by speaking.

Chernivtsi Medical College ESL academic teaching program for nursing classes students is task-based on the communicative technologies for developing speaking skills and takes into consideration the number, age, and backgrounds of the people we teach. This model includes available materials and distinct types of oral skills activities. The learning program also comprises the classroom experiences to mastering the course “How Well Can You Communicate”, which is accompanied by teacher’s explanation. The present system provides learners with skills to express their ideas in an oral form more rapidly and with deeper understanding, to improve students’ vocabulary via speaking a lot. Oral topic study list for the first-year-students covers many components subjects, e.g.: being a student, people and relationship, speaking about art, focus on youth, sports, our planet etc. The natural topical content is chosen to best match students’ needs and interests. The communicative approach in teaching is supported by usage of training tools in the classroom experience and at the students’ self-help work on their own over the course of the study. It is a collection of exercises for promoting students’ communicative activities in their academic and professional environments. Here are samples of types of frequently used exercises: work in pares, role-play, making a presentation, reproducing a dialogue, dramatizing speaking on the definite situation, leading discussion, exchanging opinions on familiar topics; home tasks of various characters: translation, retelling, rendering and paraphrasing, authentic texts; TV, radio recordings are recommended to make the students see that learning is possible not only in the auditorium. For use in the ESL classroom in controlling the content of lesson materials, a teacher’s aim is to allow our students to meet new difficulties which are sorted by us into four categories (phonological, grammatical, lexical, and cultural) one at a time. Students’ attention is concentrated on moving ahead step by step in such a way that no new material is used until a preceding one has been taught and practiced thoroughly.

Acquiring conversational competence for many learners it's difficult to master the conversational skills of the second language. It is also possible that our students do not have enough direct practice conversing with native speakers to develop conversational skills. It maybe more effective for teachers to provide their students with positive learning experiences, which motivate students to acquire the second language despite communication difficulties than it is for teachers to devote concentrated effort teaching learners the conversational features that enable speakers to overcome these difficulties. In line with Bishop (1979) we share his similarity-attraction theory, some general guidelines of which intend you to improve students' motivation, such as: stress that it is not necessary to converse perfectly to communicate in the second language; help students accept communication difficulties as normal; provide students with information about communication difficulties; do not expect students to develop the conversational skills needed to overcome all communication difficulties; teach students strategies to help them overcome communication difficulties in the real world.

An important aspects of teacher's course preparation is planning and assessing the level of students' obtained knowledge. In the system of educational matrix we apply two types of evaluation: summative (the results of knowledge acquired during the course) and formative (the teacher judges learning at any moment during the learning process). We choose the evaluation instruments, as a rule, there are three categories of them: tests, assignments, and exercises. In our teaching practice the formative kind of test is more often used for its advantage over the summative one, namely: the teacher helps students better learn the current material, examining students' work in order to diagnose possible learning difficulties in relation to a certain number of the program objectives, return them to the previous material, and potentially improve their final grades when they take the summative tests.

Thus, the program we propose is realized via a teacher who plays the leading role in performing a systemic procedure, which includes the interaction of several aspects simultaneously; analyzing the conditions of teaching situation; formulating the course objectives; making detailed course plans; choosing the teaching methods; educational materials; planning to evaluate the students' learning.

The ability to associate in oral form for medical students whose first language is not English is a major achievement. It allows students to gain competence in the language of medicine, to develop techniques of speaking and their understanding of how the medical subject-matter is expressed through the English language as an aspect of the subject they are studying. An oral approach to language learning intends to perfect students' general and professionally-oriented communicative competence.

Having summarized the above listed ESL teachers’ points of view on the educational process designing we can state, that at present there is a shift toward oral instructional goals and practices, and speaking technology is a constructive integral part of the academic format of Medical College ESL curriculum for nursing classes.

REFERENCES

1. Barnes, R. English language proficiency survey.-Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau, 1982. - P.185-186.

2. Bishop, G. Perceived similarity in interracial attitudes and behaviors. – Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1979. – P.446-465.

3. Canale, M., and Swain, M. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second languages teaching and testing. – Applied Linguistics, 1980. – P.82-112.

4. Hymes, D. On communicative competence. – Oxford University Press, 1979. P.110-114.

5. Lazaraton, A. A task-based approach to oral proficiency testing. – Los Angeles: University of California, 1987. – P.125-127.

6. Paulston, C. Teaching English as a second language: Techniques and procedures. – Cambridge: Winthrop, 1976. – P.33-59.

7. Stevick, E. Some Fundamental Ideas. – Abington Press, 1957. – P.86-91.