In recent years, there has been an increasing interest on studying abroad in English speaking countries.
Despite of a long successful educational background, international students suffer from several drawbacks. A severe deficiency is the lack of good study skills. This essay seeks to address the following questions: What are the appropriate skills for an international student to be successful on a degree level programme and what strategies can be adopted for development. It is admitted fact that reading, writing, listening, speaking are fundamental skills. These skills are like a key for success at degree level. Debate continues about the best strategies for the management of reading skills. In most recent studies, academic reading is measured in two different ways active reading and efficient reading. These methods are more practical ways of enrichment. By active reading we mean how someone is intellectually engaged with material to generate his opinion. A much more systematic study would identify how this interacts with other variables like note taking and study reading plans. Different authors measured note taking skill in a variety of ways but skeleton prose, the Cornell Note taking system, spider grams, mind maps and concept maps are well known. SQ3R is at the heart of our understanding of study reading that helps you to set study aims and to separate important information from irrelevant data. It is a five steps strategy as follows: Survey, Questions, Read, Recall and Review. As a matter of fact efficient reading, which simply means reading faster, is considered to be linked with skimming and scanning. A variety of explanations of the term skimming have been suggested but the most appropriate is to get the general idea or overview of a text and its content. In addition scanning is to read very quickly for specific piece of information. In the history of development study skills, academic writing has been thought of as a key factor in succession at degree level. A further study assesses that in higher education a student has to write essays or reports as an assignment. The former is a particularly academic form of writing, and is a standard method of developing and demonstrating a student's intellectual abilities while the latter usually focuses on actions - it typically describes something you have done, and then recommends actions based on your findings
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respectively. These tasks, at university, require you to present in writing what you have learnt and investigated. A reasonable approach to tackle this expertise could be to learn about grammar. More information on it suggests that it is the system we use for organising language that is based on punctuation and academic style. A current study on punctuation describes it, as a set of road signs to guide the reader through the ideas expressed in a sentence. Therefore Punctuation marks can tell the reader when to slow down, speed up and stop. The design of academic writing style is based on formality, precision, Objectivity editing and proofreading. It should communicate clearly and unambiguously. Initially, Academic writing is relatively formal it means one should avoid colloquial words and expressions. Secondly, in academic writing facts and figures are given precisely. Then, written language has a general objective it means the main emphasis should be on the information and the arguments. After that, editing is a close reading and re-writing of already written version aims to improve the sense and logic of your material. Finally, proofreading takes place, using the last version of your text. In new researches, listening and speaking have become a central issue for study skills. Active listening will help to ensure international students to get the most out of lectures, tutorials and seminars. The evidence from the research suggests that to sit towards the front of the room, for hearing the speaker and having a clear view of any visual aids. Other types of strategies for development could include watching: English news channel, documentaries, and social discussions. Academic speaking is founded on pronunciation and presentation. While first is important skill at university to participate successfully in tutorials and discussions. Various types of policies can be made available to flourish it as to learn about word stress, Vowels, Consonants, Phrasing, sentence stress, and intonations. And other is the ability to communicate well. It was decided that the best methods to adopt for this technique are preparing and structuring talk, managing anxiety, responding to questions, and Using PowerPoint slides.
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However, all the previously mentioned methods suffer from some limitations but the most important thing is courage, enthusiasm and quest for knowledge. As Sir Winston Churchill said Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Bibliography
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Claire MacTavish (27 January 2001) developing listening skills [online] De Montfort University Available: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/Images/c7_01_i_listening_skills_tcm6-16175.pdf [Accessed date 22/03/2012]
Newcastle university (September 2009) Academic Speaking Guide [online] Available:http://www.ncl.ac.uk/students/insessional/assets/documents/A cademic_Speaking_Guide.pdf [Accessed date 22/03/2012]
university of Reading (n.d.) academic writing [online] Available: http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/studyadvice/StudyResources/staacademic.aspx (Accessed date 25/03/2012)
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Gillet, A. (n.d.) Academic Writing [online] Using English for Academic Purposes Available: http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm [Accessed date 29/03/2012]
CRICOS Registered Provider (January 2007): editing and proofreading [online] The Flinders University of South Australia Available: http://www.flinders.edu.au/slc_files/Documents/Brochures/editing_proofr eading.pdf [Accessed date 29/03/2012]
The University of Manchester (n.d.) Study Skills [online] Available: http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/studyskills/[Accessed date 30/03/2012] Director, Student Services (24 May 2011) Speaking and presenting [online] The university of Melbourne Available:http://cms.unimelb.edu.au/studentservices/asu/speaking [Accessed date 30/03/2012]
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