Instilling soft skills in engineering learners through language learning

Abstract

Does language learning have a role in developing engineering learners to become effective would-be engineers? Besides acquiring language skills which they can put to use in their daily interactions with members of the society and in their professional communicative acts with their colleagues at work in the future, a language learner at the tertiary level now gets to equip himself with other traits that make him a whole person. Since the introduction of the generic skills in all university courses, university courses have been somewhat revamped to incorporate several worthy attributes that mould undergraduates into more balanced individuals. This study looks at a language learning course with the purpose of determining if soft skills were successfully instilled in learners. Questionnaires were distributed to the research subjects comprising third-year engineering learners at a higher learning institution who were taking their third-level language course. This paper reports the role of this language course in equipping engineering learners with soft skills in an effort to mould them to become more effective engineers upon entry into their profession.