Teaching medical student’s skills of public presentation in a foreign language

Terenteva Elena, Fraifeld Elena

The focus of the article is teaching medical students the skills of presenting scientific findings in the ESL classroom. The research has revealed that medical students have difficulties of both linguistic and non-linguistic character as they learn to make presentations in their first and second years of studies. The research also looks into reasons of the most common linguistic, communicative and behavioural mistakes and the ways to avoid them. The authors review academic literature related to the topic and analyse tasks which can be given to students to master their skills.

Keywords:public talk, second language learning, presentation, communicative competence, non-verbal communication, motivation, medical terms.