Search

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.

The paper focuses on professional knowledge in modern engineering from a science studies and a gender studies perspective. Negotiations of the mechanical machine in engineering discourse are analyzed as constantly interwoven with professional politics of the field and with gendered knowledge about the engineer. Based on a detailed analysis of debates about the mechanical machine, where the boundary between technology and nature was discussed controversially and a hybrid version of the machine was suggested, it is argued that there are two concepts of masculinity negotiated too: firstly, the ‘rational man’ who is considered gender neutral and, secondly, the ‘man of action’ legitimized by a naturally productive masculinity. Both are co-produced with the machine as being hybrid or as being an object well-separated from nature. Thus it is suggested to do more research on the cyborgs of modernity in relation to engineering knowledge.