Педагогические науки/5. Современные методы преподавания

Tatiana Litovka, Ivanna Ozarko

Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas (Ukraine)

STIMULATING INTERACTION ACTIVITIES FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

“ A professional engineer is not merely someone with a certain amount and kind of knowledge. To be truly professional, an engineer requires many other qualities – amongst them, personal motivation, professional commitment, flexibility and creativity in problem-solving, interpersonal and communication skills” (Marshall, S. 1988. Problem-solving in engineering education. European Journal of Engineering Education, 3.)

Teaching English to engineering students can be professionally oriented, pleasant, inventive and creative both for learners, and for teachers. The macro-task activities in which would-be scientists, engineers and technicians can be involved are numerous but the most popular and common ones that require at least good knowledge of English are as follows: reading papers, writing reports and scientific articles, attending conferences and communicating with colleagues, giving presentations, taking part in meetings, writing business letters, socializing over the phone, travelling.

An English course that aims at helping the students require and practice the language of their profession should include activities connected, first of all, with developing problem-solving strategies as science and technology are based on creativity and problem-solving that will lead to new discoveries via interaction. A problem-solving session deals with sharing ideas explaining the students’ choices and solutions, discussing a possible implementation of the project, evaluating various approaches and ways of solution. Thus, language skills and interaction activities will become the essential tools for intellectual and social tasks.

It’s clear that launching such activities without a previous preparation or acquisition of the necessary linguistic elements is not possible. Traditionally, language teaching is grammar-centered and organizes its input and practice around grammar rules and theoretical explanation followed by extensive exercises. ESP teaching is placed on introducing and practising lexis or terminology. Practice should be directed towards helping the students collocate words (including terms) and grammaticize them into sentences. “Without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed”(Wilkins). It is advisable to create the so-called semantic fields associated with the target subject. If asked about the words, most people think visually and name the things. But even more essential is knowing the way how objects are interconnected. Language teaching is helping students see what language belongs with other language items, i.e. word collocation.

Collocation is concentrated on linguistic environment rather than real world environment and provided the most powerful organizational principle for the language teaching and for arranging of new items. Collocation in many cases is a principle characteristic by which words/terms can be located or even defined. “Knowing ” a word involves a great deal more than being able to establish a one-to-one relationship between words and real world objects. A major element of being able to use a word of practical knowledge involves mastering its collocational range and restrictions presupposed by that range.

In addition to collocation knowledge the engineering students must be aware of other linguistic elements that may help them perform mini-tasks, e.g. how to instruct, to explain, to evaluate, to criticize, to define, to classify, to agree, to disagree, to comment etc. Basic vocabulary must be practised beforehand with simpler activities, such as presenting visuals, discussing mini-texts.

The described above macro-tasks can be introduced from the intermediate up to the advanced level after the students have been acquainted with the bases of their specialities in their native language. Of course, the technical material should be adapted for the students’ language level and their specialization. Speaking about the ways of presenting stimulating activities for the engineering students, some types should be mentioned:

· General Questions;

· Story presentations;

· Audio/Video recording;

· Computer simulation games;

· Presentations at students’ scientific conferences.

General Questions. The problem can be presented in the form of a short text containing just partial information and distributed in various students’ groups who then convene to exchange ideas by asking general questions that are usually open-ended.

Story presentation. The problem can be presented in the form of a story. In this case, the problem can be more practical or personal. In order to make the case more precise, the students can be invited to ask their group-mates for more details. This type of a technical story can be gathered from lectures or from professional journals. The students have to gather the facts and analyse the problem from different points of view.

Audio/Video recording. The problem can be presented as an audio/video recording. The problem consists in finding the missing links. The students will be eager to teach their group-mates the basis of the subjects they took notes of at the lectures.

Computer simulation games. Can be downloaded or if the students are specialists in computer science, they may be able to design and program a simulation game as a part of their scientific projects.

Presentations at students’ scientific conferences. A further pedagogical step towards giving more freedom and responsibility to an individual student would be to ask the students to make a presentation of a scientific report on the subject of their specialization. This is a good communication exercise that places the students in front of a group with a demanding objective, which is to get solutions to a scientific problem. The students can vividly discuss the reports by asking and answering questions and take appropriate solutions.

So, all the activities described above stimulate engineering students intellectually and linguistically to produce material related to their future professional situations. Various types of interaction activities will help the teachers look for or create the practical material that can be used with the engineering students according to their language level and fields of specialization.