Enhancing Professional Competence of Pharmaceutical Students in the Academic English Course

The paper presents the ideas on the integration of English language academic writing into the training of Mater of Pharmacy students. The academic literature demonstrates a powerful didactic potential for the development of both language and professional competence of students majoring in pharmacy. This fact is evidenced by the empirical study that demonstrates the finding reflected in students' graduation academic project performance. As measurement tools, we employed assessment rubrics of the graduate project, content analysis and questionnaire on teachers' feedback. The participants of the study were students from the Pharmacy faculty and teachers of English for Academic Purposes in cooperation with teachers of pharmacy. Together they outlined the criteria for the texts selection. According to the results, students mastered not only academic writing skills but also the skills of information processing and evaluation, critical thinking, presentation of information and academic integrity. The paper also presents methodological recommendations on academic texts selection for pharmaceutical students and forms of teaching academic writing to students of nonlinguistic specialities. The results of the study allow drawing the conclusion academic writing course will enhance professional competence and reduce students' misinterpreting of academic language.