THE FEASIBILITY OF CONVERSATION ANALYSIS TOOL IN THE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT OF MEDICAL AND DENTAL STUDENTS' ACHIEVEMENTS IN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this research is to demonstrate the feasibility of the Conversation Analysis Tool as an effective method of formative assessment in the context of teaching the University course of English for Specific Purposes (Medicine and Dentistry) through the implementation of elaborated and well-targeted classroom assignments and activities. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Materials and methods: The paper describes the experience of applying the Conversation Analysis Tool, developed by Kenji Hakuta et al. (Stanford University Graduate School of Education). The study relied on the analysis of the transcribed classroom conversations between students in terms of different communicative dimensions. RESULTS: Results: Activities 1-2 focused on developing the skill of clarifying ideas in 2nd-year medical students who studied the topics "Allergy" and "Sensory Organs". Activities 3-4 scaffolded the skills of negotiating and fortifying ideas in 1st-year dental students while they mastered the topics "Tooth Extraction" and "Dental Filings". The authors used such scaffolding means as the Conversation Skills Poster with starter-finisher phrases, sentence frames, strategic pairings, and visuals (graphic organizers, charts). Along with a number of prompts, the fishbowl method, modeling situations, and different moves were applied depending on the situation and the material discussed. CONCLUSION: Conclusions: The Conversation Analysis Tool proved to be an effective method of formative assessment in the context of teaching the University course of English for Specific Purposes (Medicine and Dentistry). This technique discloses students' level of understanding of the learning material, reveals the potential gaps in mastering the academic subject and allows the teacher to react timely and appropriately to eliminate them. This research will be useful for ESOL teachers at medical universities, as well as for educators from other academic settings, in the process of formative assessment and organizing classroom activities.

Terminological collocations in medical latin and english: a comparative study.

INTRODUCTION: The present paper examines the linguistic status of terminological collocations in medical Latin and English, discusses the most productive term-formation models and ways of Latin-English translation. AIM: The authors aim to provide the comparative analysis of Latin and English terminological collocations and suggest their classification in terms of the idiomaticity level and semantic valency. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research is based on the corpus of terminological collocations in Latin and English medical discourse using structural, etymological, typological, comparative methods, as well as the method of semantic analysis and conceptual metaphor theory. RESULTS: The research has resulted in the delineation of the following groups of terminological collocations in medical Latin and English: (1) terminological collocations with lower degree of idiomaticity - analytical units whose semantics correlates with the amount of free meanings of the components; (2) terminological collocations with semantic cohesion of the components due to metaphorical nature of the terminological element with active / passive valency; (3) clinical idioms - terminological collocations with higher degree of idiomaticity. Within the latter group, we suggest to discern eponymic, toponymic, zoomorphic, botanic and mythonimic subtypes of terminological collocations. CONCLUSIONS: A promising area of future research is the development of bilingual explanatory dictionaries with Latin and English equivalents of terminological collocations, as well as the information about the semantics of their components.