Creating and using interactive activities for teaching foreign medical students

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Creating and using interactive activities for teaching foreign medical students

Розробка та використання інтерактивних завдань для навчання іноземних студентів-медиків

Kateryna Nad,

Assistant at the Department of Public Health and Humanities,

Uzhhorod National University

Alina Dankiv,

Assistant at the Department of Public Health and Humanities, Uzhhorod National University

Summary

The purpose of creating and using interactive materials in teaching foreign medical students is to draw attention to the unique contribution that interaction with other students in a Medical English classroom makes to language learning and to give some advice on how teachers can help students get the most out of these activities and interaction in general. Medical students deal with medical jargon that is a language full of words of Greek-Latin origin, lexis that describes processes and parts of the human body, medical procedures, diseases, disorders and conditions. A teacher's task is to present the target language, give students a chance to practise the new terms, and what is more, promote using the acquired language in a real-life medical context. This paper presents three interactive activities (taboo game, board game, role-play) that are adapted to the medical context, thoroughly planned and practised in class. The main aims of the activities, type of interaction, timing, scaffolding, instructions, instruction-checking questions, types offeedback, error correction, a suitable number of students in a group and anticipated problems are defined. The experiment proceeds in 6 stages: 1) adapting an interactive activity to the medical context; 2) creating a worksheet for students; 3) making a plan of setting up the activity for teachers;

1) using the planned activity in the classroom; 5) observing students in the process of performing/speaking/playing; 6) pointing out advantages and disadvantages of each interactive activity. Final results were obtained after the activities were used in the classroom, furthermore, observation and reflection helped to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each activity in a medical context. As a result, it was found that effective classroom management techniques will reduce the number of disadvantages.

Key words: interactive activities, interaction, English for Medical Purposes, foreign medical students.

Анотація

Мета створення та використання інтерактивних матеріалів у навчанні іноземних студентів-медиків полягає в тому, щоб привернути увагу до унікального внеску взаємодії з однолітками на заняттях з англійської мови медичного спрямування у вивчення мови та дати поради щодо того, як викладачі можуть допомогти студентам отримати максимальний результат від цього виду діяльності та взаємодії загалом. Студенти-медики стикаються з медичним жаргоном, який охоплює слова греко-латинського походження, лексикою, яка описує різні процеси та частини людського тіла, медичні процедури, хвороби, розлади та стани. Завдання викладача полягає в тому, щоб подати новий матеріал, дати студентам можливість практикувати нові терміни і, більш того, сприяти використанню вивченої лексики в фаховому медичному середовищі. У даній публікації представлено три інтерактивні вправи (гра-табу, настільна гра, рольова гра), які адаптовані до медичного контексту, ретельно сплановані та використані на практичному занятті. Також визначено основні цілі діяльності, тип взаємодії, час виконання, підтримку та допомогу викладача студентам під час підготовки до завдання, інструкції, запитання для перевірки інструкцій, типи зворотного зв'язку, виправлення помилок, групи студентів, для яких ці завдання виявляться ефективними та очікувані проблеми. Експеримент складався з 6 етапів: 1) адаптація інтерактивної діяльності до медичного контексту; 2) створення інтерактивного матеріалу для студентів; 3) складання плану до завдання для викладачів; 4) використання запланованої діяльності на занятті; 5) спостереження за студентами в процесі виконання завдання; 6) вказівка на переваги та недоліки кожної інтерактивної діяльності. Використання вправ на занятті показало результати отримані після спостереження та аналізу кожного кроку проведеної інтерактивної вправи. Це дало можливість виокремити переваги та недоліки кожної із вправ. У результаті було виявлено, що ефективні техніки управління групою студентів зменшать кількість недоліків, які були виявлені у процесі використання інтерактивних вправ.

Ключові слова: інтерактивні вправи, типи взаємодії студентів, англійська мова для медичних цілей, іноземні студенти-медики.

Introduction

Interactive activities are parts of the communicative approach to language teaching. In most cases, a teacher is equipped with activities for the presentation of the target language, as well as practising the target language, but a lack of activities aimed to practise and also to demonstrate fluency seems to be a common problem. It is proved that interaction improves language acquisition. A thing that raises medical students' motivation in using medical terms, as well as functional language, is the tasks that are personalized and taken from real life. Apart from this, teachers should adapt tasks to reflect workplace settings or processes, e.g., a doctor-patient dialogue, describing an X-ray or making diagnoses while consulting a colleague, increasing willingness to engage in talk. The problem has received substantial interest in teaching English for medical purposes [5, p. 1-18]. However, to have a chance to use such activities, English for Academic and Professional Purposes teachers should adjust these activities to the topics. Furthermore, they can substitute vocabulary in a game or readymade activity with the needed target language and coordinate task topics with another content area. Hence, the learners understand the relevance of the activities to using the particular subject [5, p. 1-18].

Methods. A lot of studies have focused on using and creating interactive activities for General English learners, however, there is no research on the same issue in English for Medical Purposes. In order to rectify the problem, several examples of interactive activities for foreign medical students will be thoroughly planned, used in the classroom and analyzed. It would be of special interest what advantages and disadvantages may occur in the process of using the activities. The aim of the experiment is to compare interactions in these activities. One practical advantage of this experiment is that English for Academic and Professional Purposes teachers are able to implement these readymade activities within a plan in their classroom as well as take into account the pros and cons that will be observed and described in the results.

Important contributions have been made by Jeremy Harmer, Scott Thornbury and Jim Scrivener. Peculiarities in teaching English for professional Purposes have also been explored in studies by Natalia Dmitrenko, Ilona Denysenko, Anna Tarasiuk and Vita Fylypska. Most early studies, as well as current work of Tetiana Vainagii, Kvitoslava Matiichuk, Eric

G. Glendinning, Ron Howard and Sam McCarter, focus on creating activities for teaching English for Medical Purposes.

Following the researchers' example, in the paper, the experimental method is used together with the observation of students. This proceeds in the following stages: 1) adapting an interactive activity to the medical context; 2) creating a worksheet for students; 3) making a plan of setting up the activity for teachers; 4) using the planned activity in the classroom; 5) observing students in the process of performing/speaking/ playing; 6) pointing out advantages and disadvantages of each interactive activity. After the experiment, it was found that none of the activities was perfect, but they were designed professionally, that helped to reach the main aim of using them.

Foreign students use English while learning all subjects; that is why mastering functional language and medical terminology will increase their chances of succeeding in medical subjects as well as the English Language Proficiency Test which is obligatory for medical students in Ukraine. Teaching English for Professional Purposes has become an important part of higher education worldwide.

Results and Discussion

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in creating interactive activities where the following types of interaction are used: pair work (S-S), group work (Ss), individual work (S), working with a teacher (S-T), a teacher working with the whole class (T-Ss). The key point of making interactive activities for Medical English classes is to develop fluency and a good language command.

In order to achieve interactive goals, each created activity is planned precisely. The aim of the activity, type of interaction, timing, anticipated problems, instructions, instruction-checking questions, prompting, scaffolding, error correction and feedback will be depicted to convey how important it is to take into account all these moments in creating interactive activities. The examples are as follows:

Activity 1. Taboo game. (table 2. “taboo game” activity) The main aim of the activity is to use the target language in the description; in addition, there is a task for the listener to guess the term. The objective of the game is to refresh synonyms and antonyms, anatomical terms, as well as common words that describe the human body; to develop speaking skills. Interaction: students work in pairs. The activity lasts for about 20 minutes. As this is a speaking activity, the delayed error correction takes place in order not to destroy the conversation flow. In case students make pronunciation mistakes, correcting them immediately is an excellent choice to prevent fossilized errors. Anticipated problem: in practice, misunderstanding of instructions and quick guessing without making up sentences and also different levels of English may occur; an odd number of students is not a problem for this activity, as dividing students into groups of three solves the problem. Plan: table 1 (Plan to “taboo game” activity)

Topic: Human body. Taboo game

Table 1Plan to “taboo game” activity

The primary advantage of the activity (taboo game) is to develop the ability to describe medical terms to patients who are unaware of the medical equivalents of body parts. Another benefit of the taboo game is that students do not have time to go off the task as there is a time limit; what is more, it is a competition [9, p. 1].

A negative aspect of the activity is classroom management. Indeed, it takes a lot of time to demonstrate each step of the game. Another drawback that occurs is that a teacher has to be ready to scaffold, for instance, eliciting synonyms before the beginning of the activity helps.

Activity 2. Board game. (Picture 1. “Board game” activity) Games are beneficial for recalling words, preferably at speed. Although almost all vocabulary games deal with isolated words, this particular board game is contextualized, which helps to memorize the terms during the lesson even without cramming up the information [14, p. 106-111].

The interactive activity is aimed to practise speaking on types of pain, symptoms and injuries for 30 seconds. The subsidiary aim of the board game is to revise vocabulary and tenses, pronunciation of medical terms. What is more, all speaking sub-skills are being developed. Interaction: groups of three or four. Time: about 30 minutes. It is a productive task that requires the creation of sentences. The teacher makes notes of common mistakes which ensures that the students do not lose motivation by being corrected on the spot, that is why delayed error correction is the most advantageous. This activity is suitable for big groups (20-30 students). If there is an odd number of students, some groups can have one student more. Plan: table 3. Plan to “boardgame” activity

Table 2. “Taboo game” activity