"Essence of Teaching Business Communication Skills to IT Students in ELT in Serbia"

Abstract

This paper deals with the needs of IT students in ELT in the context of business communication skills. The results presented in this paper are a part of much greater research. The mix-method research was conducted at eight IT departments in five cities in Serbia during the academic year 2011/2012. The quantitative sample included 775 IT students at II and III year of their studies and 77 professors and assistants teaching domain content courses while the subsample for the structured interview included 16 students, 10 professors and 10 assistants. One of the aims of this research was to establish a detailed framework of English language courses suitable for IT students in Serbia. Among the courses that emerged, as the ones that meet the needs of IT students in ELT at tertiary level in Serbia, was the course of Business Communication. In this paper, the authors present the aims of the Business English Communication Course and elaborate on the specific activities and genres that emerged essential for this type of course. The findings may be useful for all ESP teachers teaching at Technical faculties, especially the ones teaching IT students