Communication
Skills
Active Involvement of the Learner
Littlewood suggested several elements that involve the learner to reinforce learning:
• The classroom must be conducive to communication and learning;
• Learning has to be relevant to learners’ interests and needs;
• Processes and products are important in the classroom;
• Learners must engage in active roles in the classroom.
Engaging learners facilitates and stimulates effective and purposeful learning by students. Involving learners directly engenders a stronger sense of responsibility in the future graduates that they can take beyond the university and into the work arena. It is especially important to engage learners of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as it involves new vocabulary.
Team-Teaching Collaborations
Team-teaching collaboration between a subject expert and an English language teacher can benefit learners. Overseas experience already indicates that the synergy from team-teaching can significantly improve the written and communication skills of most students, particularly oral presentations and report writing.
Development of Communication Skills
Communication skills have been identified as multidimensional and so it becomes crucial to classify how they will be assessed in the students’ work. Furthermore, the particular communication skills required in a profession are usually poorly defined.
One study identified that communication
skills assessment must:
• Be formal so that it occurs at specific times and contributes to a student’s marks;
• Provide feedback to be educational;
• Involve active participation by students in actual communication situations;
• Tackle student insights so that skills are identified and developed. Individual feedback is important but there needs to be identification and clear operational definitions of the rating dimensions so that the same standards are applied to all students: consistency and accuracy.
Implications for Teachers
Potential future research in this regard includes the following:
• Identifying how communication can be integrated into engineering subjects;
• Identifying which subjects/courses/disciplines will be easier for such integration;
• Discerning the proportion of assessment that should be allocated to communication skills (eg presentations, reports, etc);
• Identifying where initial training in communication should occur (eg at the first year level);
• Ascertaining the number and range of institutions that currently engage in such integration in engineering curricula (and to what extent);
• Collaborating with other faculties (eg management) to identify how communication education is incorporated into the curriculum in different subjects;
• Fostering international communication between
academics to facilitate information exchange.
ORAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
The burgeoning importance placed on oral communication skills by employers has been echoed internationally for a decade or more and across disciplines. Engaging learners will help facilitate and stimulate effective and purposeful learning by students. In particular, involving learners directly will engender a stronger sense of responsibility in future graduates that they can take beyond the university and into the work arena. Group Discussion is an excellent practice to enhance oral communication skills.
ALTERNATIVE TEXTS IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION :
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Alternative texts can help in foster communication skills in engineering, as well as broaden students’ imagination and understanding of concepts and disciplines beyond the current engineering domain. Indeed, literature can help in the formation of language literacy, whether it be EFL or ESL. Spanos has stated that literary texts are … at the heart of language. Educators need to keep up-to-date with such current and past popular texts and treat them as credible opportunities for the further exploration of engineering and science topics.
Engineering graduates require an ever-increasing range of skills to maintain relevance with the global environment of the new millennium. Communication skills are a vital component of this, recognised by academia and industry alike. It is one of 11 key outcomes required by an undergraduate engineering programme in the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 . Such skills are essential for an engineer who aspires to carry out his/her professional practice in the global arena.
There is a clear necessity for effective English communication skills for engineers in the current globalised environment. English is currently a prime language in facilitating communication between international cultures, particularly intercontinental. In India, the situation is more urgent as English is not only the second official language but it also acts as Lingua Franca among diverse linguistic regions in India. Four sources of weakness that can significantly impact on an engineer’s communication skills education were identified as:
• Students’ attitudes to communication;
• Insufficient course content;
• Deficient or inappropriate teaching methods;
• Lack of opportunity for engineering students to practise communication skills
Valued skills
Importance of Communication Skills
