Developing soft skills in ESP Courses: Pedagogical Methods and Challenges The Case of USMS ESP Professors Nadia ELAMRI

Résumé

This paper highlights the teaching methods that professors rely on to integrate soft skills in ESP courses. Soft skills have become highly demanded in higher education as well as in the job market. However, hard skills, or academic knowledge and know-how, have always been the focal point of education. On the other hand, English for special purposes (ESP) courses tend to focus on fostering communication skills applied to future professional spheres. These skills are the backbone of soft and 21^st century skills, being on the top target list of the university education at large. Although soft skills alignment with university curricula throughout the world has become the main target of professors and professionals, in Morocco, the shift towards soft skills is only at the outset. This presentation focuses on examining to what extent the ESP courses cope with the students’ needs for soft skills. It will discuss the key teaching methods and strategies that some Moroccan ESP professors tend to adopt and implement in the classroom in order to enhance students’ soft skills and prepare them for long-term successful career. The presentation will attempt to identify first the specific soft skills that these professors tend to focus on in ESP courses, and then how they manage to accomplish the intended goal. Results of the present research are based on conducted e-interviews with some ESP professors in different higher education institutions that belong to Sultan Moulay Slimane University. The results of this paper show the willingness of professors to integrate soft skills in their courses through a variety of teaching methods, but this willingness is detained by several challenges.

Keywords: ESP courses, Soft skills, teaching/assessing methods, 21^st century skills.