Abstract
Activating teaching methods such as short activities were used to facilitate acquisition of professional vocabulary in a third year university course for medical students entitled Medical English. Methods such as didactic games, situational games and role-plays have the potential to transform a passive recipient of information into an active participant in the learning process, to support student-centred learning, and to meet the different needs of every student.
Both the positive and negative aspects of activating teaching methods will be discussed. The author will present research focused on the use and effectiveness of activating teaching methods in which learning outcomes and feedback of the research group were compared with a control group.
Samples of the short activities implemented will also be presented.