MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE (MOOC) AS AN INNOVATIVE MEANS OF PROFESSIONAL-COMMUNICATIVE LINGUISTIC EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM FOR TRAINING FOREIGN DOCTORS AND PHARMACISTS

This article describes a massive open online course (MOOC) for foreign doctors and pharmacists. Related literature sources show that MOOCs are a form of e-learning based on open (public) Internet courses using electronic educational multimedia content, interactive user communication and support of the community of teachers, assistants and students, with massive participation of the latter. The structure of the MOOC “Russian for foreign doctors” has includes: organizational, information- training, training-practical, controlling, and communication units. Its efficiency has been proved experimentally. MOOC-based training provides: (1) individualization of professional-communicative support for foreign doctors and their educational autonomy, i.e., students have access to the course at their convenience, wide geography and massive professional-communicative support; (2) a possibility of interacting with students from different parts of the world; (3) a sufficiently large bank of resources on topics of interest; (4) an opportunity to develop grammatical and lexical skills in all types of speech activity; and (5) increasing interest in learning by attracting innovative educational technologies and tools, thus providing the necessary motivation for students and, as a result, improving the quality of education.