Developing Foreign Medical Students’ Communicative Competence: Rhetorical Aspect

Abstract

In our study, we proceed from the fact that classical and new rhetoric can be both a subject of special study and a means of developing communicative competence of foreign medical students who study Russian in such disciplines as “Russian as a foreign language”, “Russian speech culture”, “Medical rhetoric”, “Russian as a foreign language for special purposes”, which are compulsory in the curriculum as well as in some selective courses. This study is of a theoretical and applied nature, since, on the one hand, it formulates the theoretical foundations of the conducted pedagogical experiment, on the other hand, it proposes to discuss and apply a rhetorical model for developing foreign medical students’ communicative competence. The study is based on a wide range of scientific literature on the history, theory and practice of developing foreign students’ communicative competence, on the theory and criticism of rhetoric as well as on pedagogical theories and practical applications of a rhetorical approach to teaching foreign and Russian students. The primary focus is on the rhetorical canons as tools to prepare students for delivering public speeches, in particular, and as reference points for the rhetorical model of teaching Russian as a foreign language in general. A pilot experiment was conducted to prove the effectiveness of the integrated rhetorical model in the “Russian as a foreign language”, “Medical rhetoric” courses, in a special course for medical residents – “Russian as a foreign language for special purposes” – with a view to form and develop professional-communicative competence of foreign medical students.