Issues in Language Training: an Australian Study of the Language Needs of Engineers

SOMMAIRE

Combined courses in engineering and languages were recently established at Monash University, Australia. Academics, translators, and practising engineers were consulted about the nature of the courses, the requirements of industry, and likely demand for graduates. Their attitudes and opinions are discussed below with resulting questions concerning policy. Topics raised included: the place of English as a lingua franca; the relative importance to Australia of Asian and European languages; the importance of a knowledge of the culture of other countries; whether it is necessary (or possible usefully) to study technical vocabulary at undergraduate level; and whether language teaching should occur before or after entering practice.

Des cours de génie et de langues combinés ont ete recemment crees a l'université de Monash, en Australie. Une enquéte a été menée auprès d'universitaires, traducteurs, et ingénieurs exercants, sur I'essence de ces cours, les exigences de I'industrie et la demande probable de licenciés. Leurs positions et opinions sont examinées ci-dessous ainsi que les questions soulevées quant a la ligne d'action. Les traits suivants sont mis en question: la position de I'anglais en tant que lingua franca'; l'importance relative des langues asiatiques et européennespour l'Australie; l'importance de la connaissance d'autres cultures; la nécessité (et peut-etre le success) d'apprendre le vocabulaire technique avant la licence; l'enseignment de la langue avant ou aprés l'entree en exercice.     

INCREASING TEST RELIABILITY THROUGH SELF-SCORING PROCEDURES

Fifty-four graduate students were administered a 66 item four-response multiple choice test on self-scoring tests forms. Each test was scored by the traditional right-wrong method of scoring tests and was also scored by the self-scoring method of counting the number of responses necessary to respond to all items correctly. Results indicate that scoring tests by the self-scoring method can result in a higher split half reliability than tests scored by the traditional right-wrong method.     

Constructing Parental Involvement in an Education Action Zone: Whose need is it meeting?

This paper illustrates some of the tensions and contradictions in schools' attempts to develop parental and family involvement through a case study of parental involvement in an Education Action Zone. It focuses on how schools constructed parental involvement, the kinds of work they engaged in, the issues raised in managing and resourcing parental involvement projects, the perceived benefits of running the projects and the likelihood of the projects being sustainable. It is argued that the models of parental involvement that schools developed had important consequences for the role parents were allowed to play. Varying roles impose different kinds of demands on schools and parents and require different kinds of relationship between schools, parents and the local community. The more expansive the view of parental involvement, the greater the costs in running such projects and, hence, particularly in poor areas, the less chance of them being sustainable. Moreover, there were evident contradictions between the standards and inclusion dimensions of parental involvement projects. In particular, there was, and is, an evident tension for the schools around constructing parents as a resource for schools to tap into in the drive to raise standards and constructing the school as a resource for parents and the wider community to tap into in the drive to promote local regeneration and inclusion. This is being resolved in favour of the standards agenda.     

Role-play Simulation at Monash

This paper describes the development of a type of ‘executive game’ the purpose of which is to give students of civil engineering some impression of the wider context of the design of a building project in which the client, architect, contractor, regulatory authorities, and community interest groups may all play a part. The students are divided into groups of six, with a ‘co-ordinator’ whose role is to provide impetus, resolve deadlocks, and give advice as needed. In a conventional structural design course, good results have been obtained by preparing students for the game with 3 hours of lectures and a set of notes regarding their roles. The use of practising engineers as coordinators has been found to be extremely valuable.