English Phonetic Competence Development in Medical Students

Abstract

Background. In the context of globalisation in healthcare communication, foreign language professional communicative competence is an important tool for both continuous professional self-development and performing the professional duty in a multicultural environment, where English is considered as lingua franca. When studying a foreign language, phonetic competence serves as the basis for a set of language and speech competencies. However, the perception and reproduction of English speech causes considerable difficulties for students. Thus, there is the need to devise a system of phonetic exercises aimed at developing foreign language listening and pronunciation skills in medical students.

Objective. The aim is to clarify the theoretical and methodological framework for the development of students’ phonetic competence in the foreign language training at a medical university based on relevant professionally oriented lexical material.

Methods. The research methodology rests on a set of approaches: competence, contextual, integrated, and differentiated. The following research methods were applied: analysis of scientific literature, induction and deduction, generalising pedagogical experience, and methodological analysis.

Results. The authors present the examples of phonetic exercises devised relying on both traditional methods of pronunciation training, i.e., studying the articulatory characteristics of speech sounds, identifying and differentiating speech sounds, using rhymes and verses, and modernised phonetic-graphic and rhythmic-intonation exercises, i.e., consolidation of the target lexical units with a focus on pronunciation, a transcription and vocabulary challenge, that are successfully applied in practice. The importance of developing visual aids for correction of the fossilised pronunciation errors is noted and exemplified by the suffix ‘-itis’. Special attention is paid to syllabizers (authors’: ‘syllabize — to pronounce by syllables; to pronounce clearly’), i.e. short phrases and sentences for practicing certain sounds based on medical vocabulary, developed using the example of tongue twisters but not intended to make them more difficult to read.

Conclusions. The comprehensive development of foreign language professional communicative competence of medical students hinges on the modernisation of the phonetic component of the foreign language training content. It might be expedient to analyse students’ phonetic errors to create a lexical corpus aiming at devising a professionally orientated phonetic educational and didactic complex.