A pragmatic and empirical approach to medical terminology instruction: from Latin grammar to professional language learning

The paper presents a fundamental qualitative shift in Latin medical terminology instruction at the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University. The traditional Latin-grammar-oriented model has been replaced by the real-medical-terminology-oriented approach based on a radical redefinition of objectives. The two main principles of the new concept are selecting instructional content in (i) a pragmatic and (ii) an empirical or descriptive way. With respect to these principles, the instruction should reflect real medical professional language as a complex consisting of many languages (not only Latin or Greek) and language strata (especially Greek and Latin vocabulary in forms adapted to the national language). Students should only learn such language material that can be used in practice. The vocabulary should be learnt based on authentic medical texts in order to deeply understand the meaning of the medical terms and how to use them in proper collocations and contexts. This is why Latin grammar is perceived to be just a partial tool in building key terminological competencies.