Abstract:

The author examines the formation of creative educational environment in order to optimize medical students’ language training with the usage of the reflective and creative approach. Special attention is paid to the communicative competence of a future doctor, which is formed at the classes of foreign language (a compulsory subject at the Russian medical universities).

The dyads of a doctor’s professional communication, their specific content and the features of the communicative contact have been determined.

These dyads are as follows:
1) a doctor – a patient;
2) a doctor - auxiliary medical personnel;
3) a doctor – a doctor (a colleague);
4) a doctor – a patient’s relative.

The first and the second year medical students get to know what ‘roles’ they will perform in their future professional activity. The students master various lexical models for the realization of the diverse speech intensions, depending on the object of communication.

The usage of the innovative reflective and creative pedagogical technologies is the best tool of mastering not only a foreign language but also the skills of the professional culture, professional ethics and deontology. It has been shown that the application of active teaching methods requires the teacher’s ability to participate in the creative pedagogical process that promotes formation of personal and professional qualities of the students – the future health care professionals.

We use such educational technologies as didactic dramas demonstrating the communication of the doctors with the patients, colleagues, hospital administration; business and simulation games; watching movies in English about the doctors, followed by writing a reflective essay; critical incidents and situational cases related to the social aspect of a doctor’s activity. In the context of foreign language training, students also acquire some additional skills, such as communicative aspects of ethical and deontological skills, rules of corporate culture and the skills of the adaptation of the speech strategies depending on the personal characteristics of a patient.

Personal and professional development of the medical students during foreign language training do not occur randomly, it is based on the knowledge and skills acquired by the students. The formation of a future health care provider’s personality in the course of foreign language training is of the multilevel nature, and dynamics of the process of the improvement of a student’s personality will depend on the creation of favorable conditions conducive to the development of reflective, creative and intellectual abilities.

Keywords:

Medical students' language training, creativity, communicative competence, innovative teaching technologies.