66
Aleksandra Ĺ uczak
Therefore, course designers should always keep in mind that ESP/ELP courses at universities cannot function in isolation from the curricula of other subjects the students learn.
2.1.3. Study skills (EAP) aspects in the ESP syllabus One of the needs that some of the students will be happy to satisfy, but may not realise at the beginning of their studies, is developing foreign language study skills which would help them successfully apply for and participate in student exchange programmes. A dictionary definition of ‘study skills’ quoted by Richards, Platt and Platt (1992) explains the idea in a nutshell: abilities, techniques, and strategies which are used when reading, writing or listening for study purposes. For example, study skills needed by university students studying from English-language textbooks include: adjusting reading speeds according to the type of material being read, using a dictionary, guessing word meanings from context, interpreting graphs, diagrams and symbols, note-taking and summarising.
It needs to be noticed that study skills will overlap in many aspects with professional (business or legal) skills, so that offering a more academicoriented syllabus at the beginning of a university language course is fully justified. For example, reading is a very important skill for future lawyers, interpreting graphs and diagrams is often a problem area when teaching students presentation skills, while developing writing techniques will always pay off, no matter what purposes our students will be writing for: business, academic or legal ones. The skills of paragraphing, linking ideas or summarising are a must of any tertiary level foreign language course. A comprehensive list of study skills and activities may be long and detailed (Jordan 1997; Wallace 2004). In practice, teachers and course designers should select the skills and activities which their students will most likely need during the course of studies either in their native country or abroad. Due to time constraints, a selection of study skills has to be made and only the most significant can be woven into the syllabus. These might include: