To Teach or Not to Teach English for Medical Students

Abstract

The policy of the reforming of the medical sphere of education in Uzbekistan has a huge impact on teaching of the foreign language as a discipline within the general humanitarian sciences. English language teaching is gradually beginning to fade into the background, which in the nearest future threatens to "drop out" from the register of disciplines of medical universities. Foreign language, in particular, English as a general education subject, is almost lowered to the last place. The weak methodological base of the discipline "Medical English", which has replaced "general English" in the direction of ESP in recent years, as well as the modernization of professional medical education in general, creates a number of problems in the process of English language teaching. One of the most relevant areas of higher medical education has become the process of teaching special subjects in English, which also raises a number of urgent issues to address. The possibilities of improving the mechanism of learning a foreign language and effective measures for organizing activities in this direction determines the superiority for the medical higher educational institutions. In this regard, the establishment of a special specific environment for teachers of English in modern non-linguistic universities on the basis of profile and professional orientation, taking into account modern methods of teaching a foreign language, is an important factor in achieving high results in this direction.