The development of soft skills and English through ICLHE: Literature review and pedagogical proposal for engineering students

Abstract

Mastering English is a must for all engineers in the current globalized world where English is the language of science, communication and business. In an engineering syllabus, however, in addition to technical skills and English proficiency, the development of other competences also needs to be considered. To adequately equip engineering students for their careers, we also have to promote the development of soft skills such as communication, problem-solving, teamwork, time-management or leadership, among others. ICLHE (Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education), which is itself evocative of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach extensively used in other educational levels, appears as an alternative to integrate language learning in non-language subject curriculums in higher education and to develop soft skills. This paper makes a literature review to find out the main aspects that engineering instructors should consider to properly implement ICLHE to enhance learners’ development of soft-skills through the active methodologies of Project-Based Learning and Flipped Classroom. In the last part of the study, a 10-step guideline is proposed, which will help teachers to integrate these active methodologies in an ICLHE engineering subject.