Abstract:

In the postindustrial modern era, one cannot receive a high-quality engineering education without having some proficiency in one or more foreign languages. Consciously or unconsciously, engineering students are required to use a foreign language (typically English) as a tool to advance their professional development and cognitive progress. On the other hand, the paradigm of foreign language teaching is undergoing changes. Grammar drilling was replaced by the communicative/conversational method a few decades ago. The next development is a reevaluation of the communication skills required of engineering students, which goes beyond topics like history, politics, tourism, or everyday issues. The convergence of language education and engineering, which is mutually advantageous, gives rise to integrated training courses based on the CLIL principle. In both school and vocational education, CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is becoming more and more popular as a double-focused educational pedagogy. Both teachers and students face challenges while implementing CLIL programs. Due to their cognitive styles and communication patterns, engineering students face particularly large difficulties. Therefore, it is crucial for applicants to technical universities to be aware of the specific language proficiency required in order to acquire professional knowledge in a foreign language. The paper suggests the following kinds of linguistic integrative skills needed for engineering CLIL students: comprehension of the vocabulary particular to the subject (nomination); the ability to communicate in written or spoken form the fundamental operations that constitute out any efficient process (predication); the ability to transform images into written or spoken words and vice versa; the ability to link the subject, general knowledge, and common sense to the foreign language's lexicon through associative learning; the ability to describe concepts; the ability to explain mathematical symbols and operations orally; and the ability to arrange the solution of basic engineering problems. The problem is that these abilities and relevant skills are typically neglected while teaching foreign languages in the school classroom. Competitions in engineering English are a useful tool for drawing attention to this issue among prospective students and their teachers. The article provides contest problem examples and illustrates the participants' achievements for the competition that took place in the spring of 2024 at Izhevsk Technical University.

Keywords:

Engineering, prospective students, applicants, English, CLIL, abilities, competition.