ESP teaching in contemporary medical education in Brazil

Abstract

The early 2000s have witnessed significant changes in medical education in Brazil, especially because of the creation of the More Doctors Program (Programa Mais Médicos) in 2013 and the publication of the resolution that establishes the National Curricular Guidelines for Medicine undergraduate courses in 2014. The latter focuses on a human, critical and socially responsible education, which comprehends the development of the proficiency in a foreign language, preferably a lingua franca. The objectives of this paper are (i) to map the inclusion of foreign languages, particularly English, in Political Pedagogical Projects (PPPs) of public medical schools between the years 2013-2019; and (ii) to present a methodological proposal to the teaching of ESP in medical schools, according to the National Curricular Guidelines (Brasil, 2014). Online bibliographical research was carried out and data were collected from the e-MEC system and the PPPs. Descriptive statistics have shown that 65.1% of Medicine undergraduate courses (n=28) include the proficiency of a foreign language in their PPPs, being that language English in 35.7% and any other language in 64.3%; 34.9% of the institutions do not incorporate any foreign language at all. Although the majority of medical schools seem to be conforming with the National Curricular Guidelines, there might be still a gap between targeted English language practices and their association to health education and the promotion of healthcare actions.