INGLES CON FINES ESPECIFICOS: METACOGNICIÓN EN ESTRATEGIAS DE LECTURA HACIA LA COMPRENSIÓN DE LECTURA DE TEXTOS TÉCNICO-MÉDICOS EN INGLÉS EN LA CARRERA DE MEDICINA DE LA UNIVERSIDAD MAYOR DE SAN ANDRÉS

Abstract

The herein Trabajo Dirigido was a seven-month English for Specific Purposes project launched at the Medicine School of Mayor de San Andres University that consisted of developing a reading course for medical text in English addressed to fourth and fifth-year students with a beginner English proficiency level. Its making was characterized by a rigorous needs analysis of the context, which brought about specifications by way of present and target situation analyses and a language audit, that helped tailor the course design to ensure not only appropriateness at thematic and grammatical levels but also sensitivity to the particularities, necessities, wishes and lacks of the beneficiaries. Based upon such contextual characteristics as a starting point, the course design then followed theoretical reflections which consisted in making conceptual, epistemological, and methodological considerations, all of which made up the construct that served as rationale for the working methodology. This, in turn, synthesized into a proposal that -holding a scientific discourse approach, drawing on task-based language teaching and grammar-translation method frameworks as used for the teaching/learning and assessment processes respectively and resorting to metacognitive reading strategies as well as learning principles such as meaningful learning, learner autonomy, authentic assessment and scaffolding for didactic praxis- aimed at enabling the students to perform reading comprehension at an upper-intermediate level, a quite ambitious and promising pursuit given both the limited time availability and the students’ initial English level. Achieving high levels of reading proficiency in a relatively short period of time was, however, possible since the course was designed by having insight theoretically and contextually and taking advantage of favorable conditions, which was proven by the mid and end results as the students who had initially had a beginner English proficiency level and successfully managed to complete the course demonstrated full reading comprehension of, at least, upper-intermediate-English-level medical text.