Philological disciplines have been studied by medical students of the Kharkiv University since the first days of the medical faculty. Originally these subjects were taught by the Department of Pharmacy and Medical Literature, later they were combined with the main discipline at the Department of Forensic Medicine. It was not until 1850 that a decision was made to remove Russian, Latin and German languages from the curriculum.
Teaching of foreign languages was resumed in the first third of the twentieth century. According to the KhNMU archives, the Department of Foreign Languages was founded in 1927. Its first head was a teacher of German Yevtikhieva O.G. Initially, the curriculum included only German language teaching.
From 1937 to 1941 the head of the department was Associate Professor Boltenhahen Lev Karlovych. He was born in 1873 in St. Petersburg. After finishing the gymnasium, he entered St. Petersburg University, after graduation from which he received the degree of Candidate of Law and Economics. There he took a course in the history of Indo-European languages, because he sought to deepen his knowledge of German, English, French. In 1924, at the invitation of his cousin, famous Kharkiv surgeon Professor Trinkler N.P., he moved to Kharkiv, where he taught German in various schools and courses, and later moved to work to the First Kharkiv Medical Institute as a head of the foreign language course. In those years, the teaching staff of the department was small: Grosser R.G., Chernykova Y.O., Penkovska Yu.O., Vasylieva V.M. and others worked here.
In 1941, Chernykova Vira Abramivna was appointed as a head of the department. Chernykova V.A. was born in 1893 in Rostov-on-Don. In 1917 she graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of the Higher Women’s Courses in Moscow, taught foreign languages in higher educational institutions and research institutes of Kharkiv, from 1934 worked as a teacher at the Department of Foreign Languages of Kharkiv Medical Institute, from 1939 – as a senior teacher. Vira Abramivna knew three languages: English, German, French, taught them and compiled dictionaries and textbooks in these languages. When the Great Patriotic War began, the institute was evacuated to the city of Chkalov (now Orenburg). Teachers of the Department of Foreign Languages left together with the institute: Chernikova, Garmsen, Vasylieva, Yaroslavska. The work of the department was resumed during the evacuation. The whole process of learning a foreign language was built to educate students in the spirit of patriotism, pride for their native land.
In 1944, having returned to Kharkiv, Vira Abramivna quickly reformed the department and established the pedagogical process. All pre-war and war years at the department only German language was taught, and after the Great Patriotic War most students began to learn English. Since then, English, German, French languages are taught at the department.
Since 1952, the department has become more deeply engaged in scientific and methodological work: Chernikova V.A. and Maltsev V.A. actively compiled methodological guidelines, textbooks, collections of texts and exercises, textbooks, which were used in practical classes with students. Chernikova V.A. was the author of the following publications: “German medical textbook”/“Nimetska medychna khrestomatiia”, “Medical German-Russian dictionary-minimum”/“Medychnyi nimetsko-rosiiskyi slovnyk-minimum”, “Textbook of English language” /“Navchalnyi posibnyk z anhliiskoi movy”.
From 1961 to 1964 the head of the department was Heorhii Serhiiovych Smyrnov.
In 1965, Oleksandr Vasyliovych Ovdenko was elected as the head of the department.
He worked in this position until 1991. He graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages named after Krupska N.K. (Kharkiv), then worked as the head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the same institute and the dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. He was the head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the Kharkiv State University named after O.M. Gorky. In 1962–1963, Ovdenko O.V. was sent to work as a translator at the United Nations Secretariat (New York, USA) by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. He defended a thesis for the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences. He is an author of more than 115 works, including several textbooks and manuals. Ovdenko O.V. is the author of the book “18 thousand kilometers across the United States”/“18 tysiach kylometrov po SShA”, in which he writes about his impressions of being in this country and introduces readers to the most prominent monuments of art and culture of the United States.
The department paid serious attention to the development of verbal skills, an ability to work with professional literature in foreign languages. The main content of the classes for junior students consisted of various tasks: listening, translation of texts, reading (analytical, for specific information, introductory), question-and-answer control of the mastered material, annotation and abstracting of original texts, professional simulation.
In senior courses, special attention was paid to the work with original medical literature. A large place in the educational process was occupied by visual and audio means, visual aspects while learning. Tape recorders (with recordings in English, German and French), players, film-viewing devices, film projectors, lexical and grammar tables, cards for working in pairs, geographical maps, educational wall units, radio programs were widely used in the classes. Two language classrooms for 32 persons were equipped. The staff of the department constantly worked on the improvement of the methods of teaching foreign languages. Methodical meetings of the department, scientific and methodical seminars of sections of English, German, French languages, student conferences in foreign languages with meetings of amateur performances, “blue light” festive shows devoted to memorable dates were often held.
Oleksandr Vasyliovych paid great attention to translation: as a translator he took an active part in international conferences on medical issues, negotiations with the representatives of various countries who visited the Kharkiv Medical Institute, and trained teachers for similar work.
For many years Ovdenko О.V., Sakhno G.I., Syvash L.V., Sennikova T.I., Biryukova N.S., Dudakov S.Y., Korneyko I.V. worked in the groups of hospital physicians: they trained the doctors who went to work in Asia and Africa. The high level of foreign language proficiency enabled doctors to receive patients abroad, communicate with their relatives, as well as colleagues, and keep medical records without the help of translators.
Ovdenko О.V. was a member of the All-Union Methodical committee for many years. He enjoyed authority among the heads of departments of many medical institutes of the Soviet Union, he was an initiator of the 1st All-Union scientific-methodical conference of the teachers of foreign languages of higher medical institutions.
In September 1991, Ninel Serhiivna Biryukova became the head of the department, she held this position until September 1996. Biryukova N.S. was a graduate of the Kharkiv State Institute of Foreign Languages, a student of Ovdenko O.V. She spent her professional life at the Department of Foreign Languages of the Kharkiv Medical Institute, and later of the University, where she rose from a teacher to the head of the department. Working at the department, she was in charge of the English section, was responsible for the educational process at the department. Ninel Serhiivna aimed to improve the training of medical specialists in foreign languages at all levels: students, special resident clinicians, postgraduate students and applicants. She paid special attention to the introduction of new methods in the educational process of the department. Under her supervision in 1995, three textbooks for the development of English oral skills were created: “Dentistry in Ukraine and Abroad” / “Stomatolohiia v Ukraini ta za kordonom” (N.S. Biryukova, G.I. Kichigina, I.V. Korneyko), “Health Care in Ukraine” / “Okhorona zdorovia v Ukraini” (N.S. Biryukova, G.I. Kichigina, I.V. Korneyko, G.I. Sakhno), “Medical education in Ukraine” / “Medychna osvita v Ukraini” (N.S. Biryukova, L.G. Vashchenko, G.I Kichigina, I.V. Korneyko). They are different from the previous publications by the presence of a well-developed system of exercises for the development of oral skills, as well as the use of the materials on local history, which represent the organization of medical training and health care in the UK and USA.
Ninel Serhiivna paid great attention to raising professional level of the department staff. During this period, close contacts were established with the British Council (a non-governmental organization from the United Kingdom the activities of which are aimed at the improvement of the quality of English language teaching). Methodical seminars were held at the department, in which the head of the Kharkiv office of the British Council Louise Koucher took an active part, what contributed to the introduction of methodological innovations in the educational process.
The atmosphere of creative work, built at the department during this period, contributed to the planning and preparation of the candidate’s thesis by the teacher of the department Korneyko I.V. (defense of the thesis took place in February 1997), the publication of a trilingual dictionary of radiological terminology (M.I. Pylypenko, I.V. Korneyko, edited by Prof. A.P. Yareshchenko, Kharkiv, 1995).
