Developing specialized linguistic competence in foreign students studying medicine

Sa？etak The Medical University - Varna offers instruction for foreign students in bulgarian and English. Basic task of the bulgarian language course for medical purposes in both programs is to supply students with sufficient medical lexis, so they are able to pursue academic knowledge and to carry out successful professional communication in clinical settings. The effective development of communicative skills requires certain strategies and principles of teaching. building specialized linguistic competence is a process that prepares students for the subsequent stages in education. It starts with introduction to general anatomical and physiological terminology and ends up with basic clinical terminology. since bulgarian courses in both programs have different linguistic focuses, teaching strategies differ in the mechanisms used to create speech production. The present paper aims to present and to analyze our experience and practice in language instruction for academic and professional communication