The role of an English course in transferable skill acquisition

Abstract

Transferable skills (TS) have become an important part of the Higher Education agenda, and the English language department contributes to their development as well. However, there is little information on students’ perceptions of TS development in subject disciplines, not to mention the role of a language course in the TS framework. 53 self-completion questionnaires of the 3rd year bachelor degree engineering students were analyzed in order to understand the patterns of TS acquisition. The majority of respondents feel that they have developed TS mainly through solving problems in their subject disciplines. The main mission of the Department of Modern Languages and Communication is perceived primarily as building confidence in public speaking as well as in discussions within a group. There is little evidence of generalization from writing IELTS exam type assignments in the English class and writing in the discipline, and this fact needs closer attention.