Tatjana Bicjutko & Liga Belicka

ABSTRACT

With the view to the growing wish to overcome native-speakerism as well as the vision of plurilingualism as expressed in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Companion Volume (CEFR, 2020), the goal is to discuss possible changes in a university course of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) to enhance students' academic and professional performance. A pilot study was carried out with 110 first-year medical students attending English for Medicine, with the task to conduct an interview with a medical practitioner with all concomitant activities aimed both at improving students’ professional skills as well as training their overall communicative competence. Addressing the student's communicative repertoire as a totality of interrelated strategies in different languages (CEFR, 2020), the interviewing assignment was meant to clarify the effects of limited use of plurilingualism when training English communicative competence in an ESP course. Using observation, students' reflection and its content analysis, the conducted pilot study demonstrates students' recognition of a positive impact on their English language and overall communication and mediation skills. Despite the acknowledged difficulties unavoidable in translational issues, the change of explicit tasks into explicit/integrated assignments allows for a bigger range of language skill development.In addition, the task facilitates raising awareness about the general standards of communication in medicine, both face-to-face and across a range of electronic media.

Keywords

Plurilingual; communicative competences; ESP; CEFR; interviewing; mediation skills

References

1. Council of Europe (2020). The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment – Companion Volume. https://www.coe.int/en/web/ education/-/common-european-framework-of-reference-for-languages-learning-teaching-assessment-companion-volume

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4. Kecskes, I. (2019). English as a Lingua Franca: The Pragmatic Perspective. Cambridge University Press.