AbstractEnglish has become more important to learn than ever before with the development of the world. And English teaching is one of the necessary growing areas in outstanding engineers’ training education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some issues associated with the new trends of English teaching when it comes to outstanding engineers’ education. The paper tries to give information about the requirements of outstanding engineers’ education for English teaching, and is also mentioned training English applicable skills, combination of professional knowledge, and development of faculty, which attribute English teachers to make educational environment more enjoyable. Outstanding engineers’ education provides various new possibilities and latest trends both for teachers and students

Zhang, Yanli

Elsevier - Publisher Connector 

Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4291 – 4294
1877-7058 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.08.805
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Procedia
Engineering
          Procedia Engineering  00 (2011) 000–000 
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
Advanced in Control Engineering and Information Science 
New Trends of English Teaching in Outstanding Engineers’ 
Education
Yanli Zhang*
School of Foreign Language shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang 110159, China 
Abstract 
English has become more important to learn than ever before with the development of the world. And English 
teaching is one of the necessary growing areas in outstanding engineers’ training education. The purpose of this paper 
is to discuss some issues associated with the new trends of English teaching when it comes to outstanding engineers’ 
education. The paper tries to give information about the requirements of outstanding engineers’ education for English 
teaching, and is also mentioned training English applicable skills, combination of professional knowledge, and 
development of faculty, which attribute English teachers to make educational environment more enjoyable. 
Outstanding engineers’ education provides various new possibilities and latest trends both for teachers and students. 
Keywords: outstanding engineers’ education; English teaching; applicable skills; professional knowledge; development of faculty 
1. Preface 
Outstanding engineers’ profession has proposed a road map by directly putting the impact on economic 
growth through various means such as technology, learning, access and quality. It is envisaged that to 
maintain quality human resource in professional engineering education requires focusing. This would 
foster outstanding engineering education at all levels. Meanwhile, English has become more important to 
learn than ever before with the development of the world. English is the only valid language that can be 
* Corresponding author. Tel.:+86 13998251186 
E-mail address:   ellezhang3218@sina.com  
 
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of [CEIS 2011] 
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
4292  Yanli Zhang / Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4291 – 42942 Yanli Zhang et al/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 
understood by everyone all around the world. So it can be said that English has been as an ideal language 
for the expression of feelings and using the technology.  
English teaching is one of the necessary growing areas in outstanding engineers’ training education. 
Moreover, English teaching is also vital to identify achievements and goals through the outstanding 
engineers’ education and to attain students’ learning outcomes of a foreign language in accordance with 
both institutional and professional criteria. One of the major concerns for English teaching in outstanding 
engineers’ education is that in the developing countries (i.e., China) the accredited body constitutes at the 
national level are striving hard to set out uniform, transparent and precise accreditation models. However, 
in order to gain global acceptance, there is a great need to explore possibility of mutual recognition and 
global mobility of engineers. Therefore, as English teachers and researchers, we have to face such new 
trends and take a new look at English teaching. If engineering students are trained applicably and 
professionally in English during their school years, they would have the chance of becoming excellent 
experts in technology. 
2. Requirements of outstanding engineers’ education for English teaching 
Global Engineering Excellence puts forward three main points, which can be concluded as following: 
first of all, engineers will act a dominantly important role when dealing with global problems such as 
continuous development and international safety, etc. Secondly, due to the globalization of engineering 
practice, engineers need to widely cooperate together in the fields of the world. Thirdly, to train global 
engineers, this is the teamwork of government, industry, academy and some organizations related with 
engineering. It’s vitally meaningful that industry provides practicing opportunities for engineering 
students in the world. At the same time, global study on engineering education is urgent. These can show 
the importance of English use in engineering students’ studies and their future careers, which results in 
new requirements for English teaching in outstanding engineers’ education. 
3. Improvement of English applicable skills  
New trends need English teaching in profession more applicable such as in listening, speaking, 
reading, writing, and translating skills of students. Outstanding engineers’ education provides various new 
possibilities and latest trends for teachers and students. It is widely accepted that improvement of English 
applicable skills will be in favor of having advantage for our engineering students, esp. in the 
international enterprises. Good English applicable skills in learning and using information technology and 
new developments provide more expedient opportunities. English communicative events and skills are 
needed at the working place. So we should improve engineering students’ reading skills by reading more 
English books and English materials about engineering fields, especially the original ones to expand 
vocabularies and to improve sense of spoken English. Speaking with native English speakers can help 
them become familiar with some words and phrases people use in daily English. Listening skills can be 
promoted by watching more English movies and listening English songs. For writing, try to write some 
short paragraphs at the beginning and then use the reading materials to write some longer papers or 
articles. With the aid of reading materials, translation can also be trained well.  
4. Combination of professional knowledge 
After basic training students’ foreign language in the practice of professional skills, foreign applicable 
and professional teaching should be strengthened. The effective method is to teach English in practice, 
bring engineering students to the factories, give lessons there and train them in English in practice. Thus 
4293Yanli Zhang / Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4291 – 4294Yanli Zhang et al / Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 3
students have more chances to learn professional knowledge and experience the job they may do in the 
future, which is vivid for them, and hence, it is easy for them to understand the professional knowledge. 
At the same time, they can know about the working environment, analyzing and solving problems, 
communicating with the elder and senior engineers, and ability to work in a team. Combination of 
professional knowledge in English teaching in outstanding engineers’ education has become an increasing 
concern and is recognized by factories.  
5. Training ability of self-learning 
We have to learn all the time in our life and renew our knowledge to follow the development of the 
technology and satisfy the needs of the age. We can train engineering students to be creative and 
sustainable development. As individuals, teachers and students have to gain the ability of self-learning 
and long-life learning. Those who don’t often improve their skills and knowledge may find themselves 
out of date, even out of jobs. Therefore, we need to learn current skills and knowledge in order not to get 
left behind times. We may not only learn in the classroom and should not stop learning after leaving the 
classroom. We can read professional magazines, related journals, and papers, search information on net, 
ask questions, and attend in-service training programs; we can join associations and attend conference to 
know the latest trends; we can make full use of internet, distant education, e-learning and air class to find 
the extensive and changeable learning opportunity. Training ability of self-learning may enable us to learn 
more and more knowledge and useful skills at any place and at any time. This is a usefully beneficial 
lifelong learning ways.  
6. Development of faculty 
Frankly speaking, nowadays university English teachers do not have any engineering knowledge. 
Besides, most of professional teachers are not good at English teaching. Consequently, there is a serious 
deficiency in professional English teaching. And how to connect these two courses is still a new project 
for our teachers to study. Both English teachers and professional teachers should learn from each other. 
Schools may encourage our young teachers to learn some engineering professional knowledge, even 
though it is a tough job for the young teachers. Studying abroad and working in the foreign countries are 
very useful for us to learn of the world. Adopting foreign advanced teaching ideas and methods can make 
up for the old and being relatively backward teaching situation. In addition, engineering personnel who 
have foreign learning and working experiences are firstly introduced into our educational system. We can 
help and encourage teaching staff to carry out study on excellent engineering education. This is another 
new challenge.  
References 
[1] Gulcin Nagehan Sarica, Nadire Cavus. New trends in 21st Century English learning. World Conference on Educational 
Sciences. 2009; 439–445 
[2] Mehrak Rahimi, Samaneh Yadollahi. Success in learning English as a foreign language as a predictor of computer anxiety.
Procedia Computer Science 3. 2011; 175–182. 
[3] Diana Zagan- Zelter, Sergiu Zagan-Zelter. Teaching business English – a challenge both for students and academics. 
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 3. 2010; 245–250. 
[4] Ilknur PEKKANLI EGEL. The prospective English language teacher’s reflections of self efficacy. Procedia Social and 
Behavioral Sciences 1. 2009; 1561–1567. 
4294  Yanli Zhang / Procedia Engineering 15 (2011) 4291 – 42944 Yanli Zhang et al/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2011) 000–000 
[5] Behbood Mohammadzadeh. Incorporating multicultural literature in English language teaching curriculum. Procedia Social 
and Behavioral Sciences 1. 2009; 23–27. 
[6] Zhang Anfu, Liu Xingfeng. Reflection on the Implementation of “A plan for Educating and Training Out-standing 
Engineers”. Researches in Higher Education of Engineering. 2010;4:56-59. 
[7] The problem group ofthe higher education research institute in ShanghaiJiaotong University. Educating the Next Generation 
of Engineers for the Global Workshop. 2007.1:24-27,43. 
[8] Ignacio de los Ríos, Adolfo Cazorla, José M. Díaz-Puente, José L. Yagüe. Project–based learning in engineering higher 
education: two decades of teaching competences in real environments. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 2. 2010; 1368–1378. 
[9] Wisuit Sunthonkanokpong. Future Global Visions of Engineering Education. Procedia Engineering 8. 2011;160–164. 


New Trends of English Teaching in Outstanding Engineers’ Education 

file:///data/remote/core/dit/data/elsevier/pdf/b36/aHR0cDovL2FwaS5lbHNldmllci5jb20vY29udGVudC9hcnRpY2xlL3BpaS9zMTg3NzcwNTgxMTAyMzA2eA==.pdf

New Trends of English Teaching in Outstanding Engineers’ Education

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Elsevier - Publisher Connector

Elsevier - Publisher Connector