W-07 A Brief Review on Teaching Materials Used in an Engineering English Class

Abstract

Materials used in an engineering English class at a college of technology were selected to address the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English. The majority of these were used effectively with help of a PC, a projector, and an Internet access in classroom. Learning pronunciation, which is the basis of the four skills, used not only texts and sounds, but also software available on the Internet. To improve speaking skills, students demonstrated scientific magic tricks and narrated manufacturing process videos. For understanding English through listening, students were supplemented visually by watching videos on the Internet. For reading, essays in which Japanese sentences are juxtaposed with English sentences were used to focus on increasing the amount of processing. Orthodox textbooks for native Japanese students were used for writing. As a report assignment, students were asked to extract and translate English sentences from videos suitable for engineering English.