DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS – A SYLLABUS MODEL FOR ROMANIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES

The article discusses important aspects that need to be considered in the redesign of the English language and communication training customized for engineering students and advances a refreshed perspective in terms of content topic and practical knowledge assimilation. This redesign is justified by employers’ feedback with respect to students’ inadequate performance in professional interactions and, equally important, is aimed to facilitate students’ successful integration in the currently-emerging global work environments.

The current national and international workforce recruitment tendencies are prone to shaping a more demanding technical university graduate profile that overlaps strong field/specialism-related knowledge, demonstrated professional experience and specific professional interaction and communication skills.

The article reflects this HR trend at the level of the English language and communication syllabus by advancing a syllabus model customized for technical universities, more precisely Romanian technical universities, oriented to develop students' threshold skills essential for employment and career advancement.

It starts from productive feedback retrieved from important Romania-based engineering companies and from current insights into ESP, ELF, BELF and Professional Communication research (Kankaanranta A & L. Louhiala-Salminen (2013), S. Gollin-Kies et al. (2015), Quintanilla K., M. & Wahl S. (2016)), puts forward practical course content topics that enable development of career readiness-supporting skills and concludes by highlighting the most important aspects considered in the redesigned English language and communication syllabus.