“Meeting the Goals”: Enhancing English Language Skills for Students in Engineering
“Meeting the Goals”: Enhancing English Language Skills for Students in Engineering

Summary/Abstract: The present paper aims at describing the importance of developing English language skills for the students who currently study in the field of engineering. English for Science and Technology (EST) is part of the general domain of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), which has grown in importance during recent years due to the constant developments in science, technology and business. Thus, the paper is structured into four sections, the first offering a brief view on what EST means and requires, as well as on the specific features it is based on. Nevertheless, learners' needs and expectations are always to be taken into consideration afore the development of any specific course, and, the second part of the paper includes facts and characteristics related to the learnercentered approach of teaching the language. Attitudes and motivation, together with the importance of a needs analysis questionnaire are briefly discussed. The third section deals with the description of receptive and productive skills tailored on engineers' needs as well as with the metacognitive skills which aren't to be forgotten due to their importance in the process of acquiring knowledge and using information in real-life instances. Considering the given facts, the paper ends with the conclusions which outline the importance of focusing on learners' needs, improving, at the same time, various skills which students need in order to become proficient users of a language in their future careers.

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