Integration of linguistic and aesthetic education: An integrated cultural approach for teaching medical english

Foreign language teachers are now actively using modern technologies to the detriment of others, which are no less effective and perform successfully the functions of arts and cultural education. Teaching a foreign language for special purposes (ESP) is not often connected to works of art and has no practical application in professional communication skills training. The purpose of this study was to prove the effectiveness of the application of art in ESP teaching. The experimental training course enrolled 60 students of the Institute of Medicine of RUDN University who studied in the field of clinical medicine in the period from September to December 2018. 60 students who studied under the standardized curriculum were considered as a control group. 16 professional translation lessons were integrated with fine art. The course was divided into three stages (5-6 lessons each): classroom lessons, visit activities at an art gallery, individual project presentation. Before and upon completion of the training course, students were tested on the levels of their linguistic knowledge, motivational involvement, cultural and professional development. As a result, the majority of experimental group benefited from participating in the course: (language aspects mastering - 92%, motivational involvement - 100%, cultural development - 95%, professional development - 96%). We can conclude that ESP teaching by means of art education is an effective means of enhancing students' linguistic, professional, and cultural competencies and contributes to increasing the motivation to learn a foreign language. © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.