Visualisation strategies have been successfully implemented in teaching languages, now, with digitalisation and the subsequent transformation of teaching, they are becoming indispensable in teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). This paper addresses the issue of using static data visualisation techniques for enhancing oral summarisation skills amongst PhD students majoring in computer science. The experimental results suggest that using visual scaffolding techniques in EAP settings—specifically, creating infographics and flowcharts—both lowers psychological reluctance of students when working with complex scientific texts and facilitates the summarising process, thus improving the quality of the end product, i.e. the oral summary. The proposed strategy prevents working memory overload and, through allowing learners to move away from the linear text presentation, encourages a better understanding of the text. Additionally, composing visuals enables students to perform multistage text interpretation throughout the summary preparation process allowing them to identify the significant ideas from complex academic texts and structure the accumulated information properly.