Essay Sample on The Significance of Transversal and Language Skills in Universities

There has been a rapid shift in the labor markets, which are progressively occurring. Yet, the environments for learning remain unchallenged when it comes to the provision of new professionals across the globe. Hence, this has created a gap in transversal competencies, which has compelled students of higher learning institutions to pursue. The majority of higher learning institutions have emphasized transversal skills among learners, and curriculums have been developed to accomplish these demands. The primary focus of the study is to attain integration and fusion of transversal skills into the development of specialized curriculum training for a foreign language. The study applied mixed methodology techniques, which combined qualitative and quantitative methods in the study. To guarantee the cohesion of the study, four research and monitoring techniques such as course dossier, needs analysis, task-based activities, and adapted competences scales were used. The outcome of the research shows findings provide from the piloting stage of the teaching experience and emphasises the need for student-based skill training.

Key Words: engineering students, higher education, transversal competences, second language acquisition, foreign language teaching

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Implementation of Transversal Competencies in Engineering Degrees to Integrated Content and Foreign Language Teaching

Leaners of higher institutions require specific training that ensures they develop social, ethical, and professional accountability skills (Feldhaus et al. 2006). Feldhaus et al. (2006) developed a qualification founded on the vital skills for professional leadership in institutions. The competency training presents university graduates with the opportunity to establish their goals and help the graduates to comprehend the various specific competencies necessary to succeed in different work settings. Feldhaus et al. (2006) state that competence denotes the ability to achieve something effectively and successfully. Therefore, it becomes a positive annex that all professionals desire to achieve, irrespective of their areas of specialisation. Nonetheless, Feldhaus's emphasis on leadership skills as the primary course orientation does not have a more comprehensive competence vision or does not match with L2 skills.

Conferring to Walther et al. (2011), a series of elements present in the education system determines the professional and skill training for engineering students. In this research, unlike the study by Feldhaus et al. (2006), Walther and colleagues suggest the application of a modality founded on seven blocks of professional competencies associated with the technical training framework. Based on the linguistic profile of future American engineering students whose native language is English, the communicative competence in L2 is yet to be considered. Also, a study carried out in Spain by Álvarez (2013) shows revolutionary accomplishments in teaching specialised English and content course. In the study, the integration of generic skills together with Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) techniques were taught on campus and within the Moodle setting. A holistic observation of the assessment scale could attain relevance and precision concerning the achievement of competencies. Overall, the planned course activities, together with the project work explicitly developed for the course, were integral for the L2 curriculum model for this study.

In a similar study by Kongsom (2016) carried out in Thailand, the study enhances the application of communicative techniques in engineering degree educational programs. Often, foreign language students face the challenge of learning English, especially oral expression. The strategy for communication is tightly associated with the strategic competencies used in the teaching of future engineers. Based on the findings of the study by Kongsom (2016), a course of ten communicative methods was efficient in improving communication and strategic skills of students in higher learning institutions. However, the study falls short of profoundly discussing the specific competency-based higher institution training.

Based on the above discussion of various evidence-based literature, the following research questions were formulated for this study.

1. What form of research methods and tools can address the enactment of transversal and linguistic skills in L2 training at the university level?
2. Is it possible to evaluate training results?
3. Is it possible to personalize and account for the interests of students when developing a training course?
4. Does the application and piloting of the hypothesised course framework relate with desired learning outcomes in terms of skills learned?

Thus to address these research questions, comprehensive research on literature touching on transversal training will be performed. The study will apply scholarly articles as well as a qualitative review, and analysis will be carried out to validate the stance on the significance of transversal skills in universities globally. In this study, the notion of non-linguistic higher learning degrees enables deviation technical to financial areas to extrapolates research findings. Besides, the various geographical and political occurrences, as well as activities and social contexts across the globe, impact the issue. Moreover, other critical elements to consider s include the attitudes and expectations of students in the achievement of transversal competencies. Often the expectations of learners depend on specific students on what they desire to accomplish in the universities. Furthermore, it depends on the proposals that determine their training as well as their need to realize strong transversal competencies. Also, some learners perceive the skills as a waste of time and immaterial in their areas of specialization. Hence, the primary aim of the study is to change this perception through current research.

RESULTS

Needs Survey Analysis

The research places students at the core of the learning process based on the Bologna process priorities. The study will focus on both linguistic contextual and technical thematic student preferences. Seventy-six engineering degree students of XXX, Spain, from the academic year of 2017-2018 took part in a needs survey to provide precise data through the Google Drive format survey. The results of the study are indicated below:

Language Learning

Based on the responses obtained, 81.6 percent of university students began studying English in elementary school. Besides, 42.1 percent of study participants reported having acquired the official certificate of level A2 of English, while 7.9 percent possess a formal degree of level B1. Besides, 7.9 percent of the participants had level B2 degrees, and 42.1 percent lacked any form of official certification. When a question regarding their experience of learning English was addressed to participants, the outcomes obtained relate to the almost equal spread of courses, with 22.4 percent agree to have experience with general English B1. Also, 25 percent admits to having experience with technical English B1, 28.9 percent with general English B2, and 23.7 percent reported lack of previous experiences.

Future L2 Application and Preferences

The prospective use of English provides clear proof of the study participants acknowledging the significance of L2 to accomplish professional objectives. 78.9 percent of study participants reported the application of English in their future areas of employment as the most probable scenario. At the same time, 13.2 percent of study participants indicated travel and free time as the likely reasons. Besides, 6.6 percent of study participants reported the university educational settings as the main reason, while 1.3 percent stated friends and family. Moreover, from the survey, 32.9 percent of students desire to work within the field of process management and maintenance. Besides, 28.9 percent prefer to work in research and development fields, 27.8 percent in project management and consulting, while 10.5 percent preferred to work in technical sales assistance and customer service.

Based on work expectations, 47.4 percent of university students with degrees report future requirements of specific English vocabulary, 39.5 percent indicate general English vocabulary, 7.9 percent general English grammar, while 5.3 percent indicate specific grammar. The study participants suggest that the most critical linguistic competency required for their professional future oral expression in L2 at 81.6 percent, 9.2 percent for verbal expression, 5.3 percent for written expression, and 3.9 percent for reading comprehension. Therefore, the information collected from the study yielded very substantive findings.

Proposals and Suggestions

The needs analysis survey incorporates several open-ended questions, such as:

What is the best book for each study participant? Respondents provided the following answers: Gold First, Communicating across cultures, Face-to-face, English grammar in use, Objective First, Face-to-face, Cambridge English B2 level, My grammar lab, and speaking skills books.

What other subjects can we include in the course design? Respondents provided the following answers: Cinema and history, Art, Science, novel technologies, Teamworks, Marketing techniques, Communication skills, negation skills, and business skills. The findings obtained assisted in acquiring features of previous L2 understanding students, authenticate likely educational subjects, and proposals concerning L2 training experience for students.

A Course Dossier for Teaching Competences

The course dossier addressed the primary areas of English grammar ad emphasizes various factors that students require to improve in reading, listening ad writing competencies so that they can confidently communicate. The dossier comprises ten units that are founded on the most recent subject areas to engage students to learn the language based on the requirements of the B2 level(see Table 2). An extensive scope of activities has been developed to involve students and the language to the actual world demands and to categorize the units into the following forms of practice:

When associating the teaching of L2 communicative skills with the transverse skills, the pot of origin in the ten educational units designed to suit the educational requirements of future professionals. Similarly, every unit suggests coherent communicative-linguistic methods of level B2 and links contents to the list of transversal skills selected for the existing project. Through this, the study accounts for the dossier created so that all L2 English professors can have various pre-developed thematic activities tightly-linked with skills development. Also, the format of the record will enable the inclusion of academic tasks founded on the cross-curricular projects and pursue new ventures of collaboration with educator-professionals in specialized topics.

An Adapted Transversal And Language Competences Assessment Scale

As discussed earlier, the study incorporates and adapted evaluation scale that fortifies the process of knowledge acquisition and guarantees competency is established. Also, the rubric attached (see Appendix 1), proposes a user-friendly model on descriptors, competence names, and Likert scale marking that can be used for self-assessment, used by teachers or by peers.

Task-Based Curricular Design Modelling and Piloting

Conclusions

The study on the significance of transversal and language skills in universities shows the type of skills that institutions of higher learning need to pursue. Regarding limitation, the research focuses on critical evaluation of...