PROBLEMS OF TEACHING LATIN TO FOREIGN MEDICAL STUDENTS AND WAYS TO SOLVE THEM

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the consideration of the specifics of teaching Latin at the School of Medicine to foreign students at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Certain difficulties which arise before the teacher during the educational process due to the different level of language training of foreign students and decrease in students’ interest and motivation due to their failure to fulfil the teacher’s requirements, are outlined. The authors of the article propose to involve various teaching methods to enhance students’ educational and cognitive activity in Latin classes. They also pay attention to the need to master a sufficient amount of lexical material, noting that the list of obligatory grammar topics for students of the School of Medicine is relatively short. In order to develop future doctors’ linguistic mindset, acquire skills in the correct use of professional vocabulary and fluency in medical terminology in medical practice, the search for new methodological approaches to teaching Latin for English-speaking students has begun. Teachers’ experience demonstrates that the method of interdisciplinary learning is effective, since integration provides not only interconnection, but also interpenetration of individual academic disciplines into each other, which increases the cognitive activity of students and contributes to a more conscious assimilation of the material being studied. The use of information and communication technologies, as well as a combination of passive and active methods, including interactive ones, with the parallel use of semantisation and the brainstorming method, which involves putting forward creative ideas in the process of solving problems and stimulates students’ critical and creative thinking, are proposed to be used to increase the level of knowledge, the motivation, and the interest of students during the learning process. Pedagogical reflection is used for self-analysis of teachers’ work and updating the course curriculum in order to improve and transform traditional teaching methods in accordance with the problems faced by English-speaking groups.