Abstract:

Requisite engineering graduates’ competencies and skills have been of interest to higher education accreditation agencies, academicians, researchers and industry. The College of Engineering (CEN) at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) places a strong emphasis on developing excellence in communication skills, both written and oral. An English for Engineering course is offered as a compulsory requirement for engineering students and the students are expected to take the course at a certain point of time during their study. The course objectives are to instill into the students oral and written English communication skills that will enable them to cope with their university education and prepare them for the labor market. When students perceive course contents as relevant , this makes them become motivated to think about the materials and may retain the information for longer periods. This study is conducted to investigate students’ perceptions of the relevance of the course contents. It also aims to ensure that learners’ acquired skills are those that their academic study and the work environment demand. The results, obtained from the survey, point to the students’ high perceptions of the positive impact the course contents have had on their academic skills, personality attributes and labor market requisite skills. Results also indicate that degrees of relevance differ across student population.

Keywords:

Pedagogical innovations, engineering students' competencies, personality attributes, course relevance.