Communication skills and ESP courses: a Basque experience

This paper analyzes those communication skills expected of engineers, as well as their current deficiencies. Subsequently, resources required to develop technical and professional communication maturity used in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses are specified. In particular, oral presentati...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: González Ardero, Joseba M.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2010
País:España
Repositorio:accedaCRIS portal de investigación de la Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canaria
OAI Identifier:oai:accedacris.ulpgc.es:10553/7067
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10553/7067
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:570107 Lengua y literatura
550510 Filología
Descripción
Sumario:This paper analyzes those communication skills expected of engineers, as well as their current deficiencies. Subsequently, resources required to develop technical and professional communication maturity used in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses are specified. In particular, oral presentations and report writing, by means of role-play and simulations, are analyzed. Also considered are other aspects directly related to the improvement of communication skills, such as metacognition and interdisciplinary collaboration (communication). Finally, a practical case is presented: an ESP course for engineers at the Industrial Technical Engineering College from Bilbao (Spain). Several examples of tasks and activities to develop such skills are presented. Moreover, studies and data regarding their opinions about the importance of all these topics in their current learning process and in the long term are presented and analyzed. The main conclusions of the study could be summarized as follows: 1. Oral presentations and report writing are highly useful to improve engineering students’ communication skills; 2. The information provided to them can be successfully applied outside academia.