Implementing the content of language training in the system of postgraduate medical education

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of implementating the content of language education in doctors’ postgraduate training. Based on the analysis of the diagnostic initial test, questioning and interviews with students of the courses of thematic improvement in the Ukrainian language, the authors offer ways to improve speech and language competencies of specialists in the medical sector. They also give the specifics of the content of language teaching at the postgraduate level. Its implementation is shown in the working curriculum of thematic improvement in the Ukrainian language, which is structured in four content lines such as speech, linguistic, sociocultural, and activity (strategic).

The speech content line is realized in the main types of speech activity (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) with the help of a system of exercises and tasks. The construction of dialogical and monological statements of different types, styles, and speech genres in professional and other spheres of life are the most effective among them. At the stage of postgraduate education, the language content line focuses on the norms of the literary language and speech culture. According to its implementation, the authors offer exercises and activities for classroom and extracurricular work specific to adult listeners. The integrative socio-cultural line of the content is aimed at the development of listeners’ general culture, including tasks for listeners’ independent work associated with knowledge of Ukrainian history, ethics and mentality. The active (strategic) content line is purely procedural. It involves improving the skills of key thinking techniques and methods that are implemented in didactical games, discussions, conversations, etc.

The authors argue that all content lines are organically combined, interpenetrate and complement each other. But at the same time they are relatively autonomous components of the content of language education. The experience of working with adult listeners allows identifying the most effective active teaching methods, including situational modeling, analysis of texts of different styles and genres, didactic games, work in small groups, «creative workshops», etc. The article contains practical advice to teachers on training in the system of postgraduate education.