Teaching Medical Cross-Cultural Competence and CLIL: a CLIL Approach in Medical English Education

Many reasons have been stated for instituting cross-cultural competency training into medical schools: improvement of clinical encounters, relevant treatment recommendations, compliance, reducing racial/ethnic disparities in care and avoiding the exacerbation of illness ( Kleinman, 1978; Betancourt, Green, Carrillo, & Park, 2005; Institute of Medicine, 2002). Multiple competencies have been identified including stereotype avoidance, assessment of core cross-cultural issues, communication techniques, etc.( Betancourt, Weissman,et al. 2007). Six hundred (600) students received medical cross-cultural competency training in English based on the above research. Very little or no previous experience or training was reported in the pre-test research surveys and on the whole, students did not seem to understand the importance of cross-cultural competency. A pre-course self-assessment of English was also given within the survey. A CLIL-based course in “Medical Intercultural Competency” was delivered to the students which resulted in an average improvement of (.5) to one (1.0) complete ECFR level in the area of spoken communication in 40 hours. Students also demonstrated significant growth in the area of medical intercultural competence. The strategy of combining CLIL-type instruction, multimodal analysis and cross-cultural training seems to be effective: increasing English language ECF level and developing cross-cultural medical competence.