E-LEARNING TOOLS AND TASKS FOR DEVELOPING THE ENGINEERING STUDENTS' READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS IN ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND WORK PURPOSES

Abstract

Arguing for the importance of e-learning in developing the engineering students' reading comprehension skills in English for achieving proficiency for academic and work purposes in the multicultural 21st century society, this paper shows that a special focus on using e-learning tools such as e-readers and certain recommended websites plays an important role in meeting our teaching objective and in fulfilling the students' educational needs. These e-learning tools motivate and encourage the engineering students to read at least a minimal bibliography in English to enable them to successfully meet the demands for professional communication, argumentation and writing in the English language seminars in a technical university. Using e-readers and the specialized websites, including the online libraries, to read English fiction and non-fiction to advance the engineering students' knowledge of English and to develop their reading comprehension skills for the Cambridge English exams, for academic and career purposes will lead to achieving proficiency in this foreign language. Not only will these e-learning tools help the students to advance their knowledge of English, but they will also enable them to broaden their cultural and knowledge horizon, to be up-to-date with the latest societal, career changes and challenges in our society. That is why this paper will enlarge upon: 1) the importance of using e-learning tools such as e-readers and specialized websites to develop the engineering students' reading comprehenshin skills in English for achieving proficiency in this language for academic and career purposes; 2) the students' perspective on the importance of e-learning tools for developing their reading comprehension skills in English; 3) a methodological approach to developing the engineering students' reading comprehenshion skills in English using e-learning tools. Being fond of using technology for e-learning purposes, the engineering students will be motivated to use e-readers to read more recommended English texts, including fiction, non-fiction and specialized technical literature, in order to develop their reading comprehension skills in English for linguistic, academic and career purposes.