The implementation of principles of foreign language teaching in designing a coursebook for university medical students

Abstract

The paper deals with the issues of designing an English language coursebook for university medical students. The coursebook has a dominant role in education as the main means of transferring knowledge. The problems related to design criteria for a manual and its functions have been investigated by both Ukrainian and foreign scientists.

The topicality of the research is specified and predetermined by the need to develop a methodological basis for designing an English language coursebook for university medical students.

The object of the research is a unit structure for an English coursebook for first-year medical students.

The aim of the work is to present a methodological basis for designing a syllabus of an English course for first-year medical students, to substantiate the implementation of the principles of foreign language teaching in the creation of a coursebook, the main aim of which is the formation of communicative competence with the help of a system of pre-textual, textual and post-textual exercises.

The presentation of the main material. The goal of studying the discipline “The English language” is to form professionally-oriented communicative competence of the students based on studying some English content involving medical terminology and lexis of systems of the human body. The syllabus comprises the following topics: the structure of the human body, the musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system and immunity, nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, urinary system, reproductive system, and the endocrine system. The tasks for each topic involve doing drills, listening to and reading authentic medical texts, watching videos, and doing exercises for self-studies.

Conclusion. The authors have concluded that the efficiency of forming the communicative competence of medical students depends on following a certain sequence of (pre-textual, textual, and post-textual) tasks and principles of foreign language teaching in designing units of the coursebook.  The researchers have substantiated the necessity of being guided by the didactic and methodological principles in designing a syllabus and coursebook. The authors have analyzed the structure and construction of the units.

Having been guided by the current requirements for a task design defined by the prominent Ukrainian methodologists, the researchers have presented a system of tasks that develop language and speech competences in reading, writing, listening, and speaking for medical students while studying the body systems.

The perspectives of further research will embrace the creation of an English coursebook for second-year students of medical universities and medical faculties of universities. It will include the description of the diseases of the human body systems studied during the first year.