Building research skills for students of technical universities attracts the attention as an important component of the professional competence. One of the possible solutions is to use elements of research work in the process of foreign language teaching, since this academic discipline provides a variety of opportunities for acquiring these skills. Studying a foreign language contributes to the development of research skills, analytical skills and critical thinking. Teaching students how to work with a text, to extract information, to use compression skills (summarizing) and expanding information (commenting), using citation, compiling a bibliographic list will help them gain skills for writing articles. The ability to make a presentation, ask questions and prove their point of view will prepare students for a presentation at a scientific conference and participation in a scientific discussion. Use of computer technology at all stages of training (information retrieval, creation of a written text, preparation of a presentation) also contributes to the skills necessary for a contemporary specialist. Attracting students’ attention to research work in a foreign language contributes to the increase of motivation for scientific work, and to the further studies of a foreign language, which becomes a means of obtaining professional information and generalizing existing knowledge in scientific work. Reliance on previously obtained knowledge brings research skills development in the framework of “foreign language” programme to the fore for non-linguistic stu-dents. These conclusions can be useful for teachers and students of a technical university and can improve research work organization of future specialists.
Reading skills in a foreign language as a stage of professional competence formation
