Engineering Communication Skills

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• 5. Gender equality

Objectives

Engineering Communication Skills is a course that introduces you to the technical and academic language and skills that you need to study specific subjects in English during your degree programme.

The main aim of the course is to familiarise you with dealing with basic technical communication at university level. To do this you will:

• Improve your reading, speaking, writing and listening skills in English in a technical context
• Build up your knowledge of technical language in English 
• Demonstrate learner autonomy by maximising use of learning resources and producing quality work
• Analyse and reflect on the relationship between science and technology, gender, culture and society

Learning outcomes

Participants will be able to...

1. Understand and analyse specialised academic texts looking for general and specific information.
2. Understand everyday conversations and the general idea of technical discourse.
3. Gain competence in writing more effectively and precisely.
4. Participate with a certain confidence and coherence in conversations in class or in small groups.
5. Prepare and give a technical presentation.
6. Understand technical vocabulary and grammatical rules and apply them to some extent in context.

Competencies

General skills

• Show a positive attitude to lifelong learning, innovation, creating value and acquiring knowledge.

Specific skills

• Work in a multilingual, multidisciplinary environment, and give oral presentations and write reports in English in the field of science and engineering.

Basic skills

• Students can communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialists and non-specialists.

Core skills

• Become the protagonist of one's own learning process in order to achieve personal and professional growth and acquire all-round training for living and learning in a context of respect for linguistic, social, cultural, gender and economic diversity.
• Use oral, written and audiovisual forms of communication, in one's own language and in foreign languages, with a high standard of use, form and content.

Content

Engineering Communication Skills will focus on topics related to Mechatronics Engineering and include:

• Speaking (presentations, discussions and debates)
• Listening (everyday and technical conversations, monologues set in a professional context)
• Writing (essays, technical reports, emails)
• Reading (short technical documents and articles)
• Language points (grammar and technical terminology)
• Project work (Collaborative Online International Learning)
• Reflect on social, cultural, economic and gender diversity in the field of science and technology 

Evaluation

Course assessment is a mixture of formative and summative assessment. The final mark of the subject (NF) is the weighted average of the marks of the following items.

Component 1. Theory and Skills

• Test 1 (20% of NF): Writing, Grammar and Vocabulary, Listening RA2, RA3, RA6
  • Individual assessment. May be retaken.
• Test 2 (25% of NF): Writing, Grammar and Vocabulary, Listening. RA2, RA3, RA6
  • Individual assessment. May be retaken.
• Test 3 (10% of NF): Speaking RA2, RA4
  • Individual assessment.  

Component 2. Practicals

• Speaking (15% of NF): Presentation, Discussion, Debate RA5
  • Individual and group assessment
• Project work (15% of NF) RA1, RA2, RA3, RA4, RA5, RA6
  • Individual group and peer assessment
• Class participation (5% of NF) RA4
  • Individual and self-assessment

Component 3. Reports and Exercises

• Reading Comprehension (10% of NF) RA1
  • Individual assessment

* Absence from classwork results in the following: 25% penalisation of group mark for justified absence and 50% for unjustified absence.

The final course mark will be obtained from summing the average scores of the different assessed activities.

Other criteria

• Attendance to practicals is compulsory.
• Unjustified absence from three or more practical activities will lead to a Fail grade.
• Justified absence from more than 50% of practicals will result in a mark of zero for the Practicals component.
• In general, assessment is in person.
• Students may retake activities, if applicable, in the reassessment period.

Methodology

The methodology used includes communicative activities, authentic materials, individual work, group work and whole class participation. Class sessions require attendance and active participation in English to maximise learning outcomes. Reading tasks are assigned using the flipped classroom method with students reading texts at home followed by guided discussion and evaluation in class. You have approximately 60 contact hours during the semester. Classes are 4 hours a week, 2 hours in a subgroup and 2 hours with the whole class. You also have 90 hours of autonomous self-study for project work, reading class material and preparing for assessed activities.

Bibliography

Key references

• Mann, Malcolm & Taylore-Knowles, Steve (2008). Destination B2: Grammar and Vocabulary with Answer Key. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/40792840/Destination_B2_Grammar_and_Vocabulary_with_Answer_key
• Murphy, Raymond (2019). English Grammar in Use: Fifth Edition. Retrieved from https://can-ada.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/english-grammar-in-use-intermediate.pdf

Further reading

Teachers will provide complementary bibliography and compulsory reading throughout the course via the Virtual Campus.