On Thursday last week, SLC’s Bethan Edwards and Chris Moore gave the closing plenary at the 1st international scientific and pedagogical forum, ‘Integration of Medical and Pharmaceutical Education, Science and Practice’, at Krasnoyarsk State Medical University in Siberia.
The plenary was given virtually, though we’re hoping very much to jump on the Trans-Siberian Express next time and get there in person.
Bethan and Chris presented in conjunction with Professor Irina Markovina at Sechenov University. SLC has been working with Sechenov on a variety of projects over the last five years, including the integration of SLC online materials into university language courses - see case study, the co-development of Anglo-Russian online courses, and the judging of the Medical English Olympiad.
The plenary focused on the programme SLC and the Sechenov Linguistics department have co-developed for Russian medical university teaching staff who have to give lectures, seminars and classes in English.
Growing numbers of medical universities across Russia now offer courses in English as they seek to attract more international students and to improve the engagement of academics in international research and collaborative projects where English is the lingua franca.
The programme, ‘English for Classroom Use’, draws on SLC and Sechenov’s collective experience working with medical lecturers, medical English teachers and medical students. It also incorporates much of the learning gained from English Medium Instruction courses given around the world, not just on medicine but in a growing number of disciplines as universities internationalise.
The course was first written and piloted in 2018, and then repeated with some changes in 2019 following feedback and review - read the blogpost. It has now been further developed and refined during the last two years ready for a post-pandemic re-launch, both face-to-face and online. The course is tailored to specific university needs and is delivered by experts from both Sechenov and SLC.
In the plenary, Chris looked at the growth of English Medium Instruction with specific reference to medicine degrees, while Bethan focused on the practicalities of the course given to the teaching staff at different faculties in Sechenov and what the key learnings were.
We’re delighted to say the feedback was very positive. We’re looking forward to working with the teaching staff at Krasnoyarsk later this year and hope to expand the programme to other universities in the near future.
If you’re interested in the presentation, please download the slides.
And if you’re interested in training your medical teaching staff to teach effectively in English, please get in touch.