CONTENT AND LANGUAGE INTEGRATED LEARNING: ASSESSMENT OF ACQUIRING ENGLISH SCIENTIFIC LITERACY OF ENGINEERING GRADUATES

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) has been proved to be an innovative and effective method for developing a foreign language proficiency of students of history, geography, social and other related studies, yet it is not so widespread in the science and engineering education. In Izhevsk State Technical University (ISTU) CLIL is adopted for teaching/learning at English classes of machine engineering magistracy students. One of the main objectives of employing CLIL is to acquire students’ both written and oral English scientific literacy.
The complex examination of the gained graduates’ academic language skills was made during the magistracy student research conference held on April, 2011 in ISTU. The productive skills of academic writing, oral presentation, and debate were assessed for test and reference groups of engineering graduates. The paper highlights a technique of employing CLIL for engineering students, discusses the criteria for the complex assessment of English scientific literacy, and the results obtained.