Talk presented at 3rd International Conference of the Portuguese Society for Engineering Education (CISPEE 2018) | 27-29 June, 2018, University of Aveiro. Author: - Cristina Sá (CIDTFF) - cristina@ua.pt

1. 27dejunhode2018
Cristina Manuela Sá
cristina@ua.pt
Portuguese language, didactics and engineering:
An (im)probable relationship
3rd CISPEE
Universidade de Aveiro

2. Plan of the presentation
Whatcanengineeringprovidetothe21stcenturysociety?
WhatcanPortugueseasamothertonguegivetoengineers?
WhatcanDidacticsgivetotheteaching ofengineering?
Howcantheteachingofengineeringcontributetothedevelopmentoforalandwritten
communicationskillsinthestudents?
Conclusion

3. .
What can engineering provide to the 21st century society?
The society of the 21st century has some keywords:
globalism, transversality, skills.
Consequently, life in modern society requires a new model
of education centered in the development of skills rather
than in the acquisition of knowledge (although the latter
keeps its importance) (Sá, 2018; Sá, Cardoso & Alarcão,
2008).

4. .
What can engineering provide to the 21st century society?
In an effort to prepare people for such a context,
international organizations (e.g. European Commission,
2007) and national governments (Gomes et al., 2017) have
been trying to identify skills essential to life in an ever
changing world.
This effort demands a new model of Education featuring
more engaged students assisted by their teachers.

5. .
What can engineering provide to the 21st century society?
Engineering is:
- Related with Mathematical literacy and basic skills in
science and technology (European Commission, 2007);
- Leads to the development of transversal skills such as
Reasoning and problem solving, Critical thinking and
Interpersonal interaction (Gomes et al., 2017);

6. .
What can engineering provide to the 21st century society?
- May benefit from new directions in teaching based on
Cooperation and collaboration, Projects, Integration of
several kinds of knowledge and Critical use of several
sources of information and ICT (Gomes et al., 2017).
Thus, being an engineer or teaching and learning
engineering in the 21st century are ways of taking part in
this political, social and educational movement.

7. .
What can Portuguese as a mother tongue give to engineers?
Everybody knows that being proficient in
oral and written communication in the
mother tongue is very important, because
these skills are present in all our activities,
either professional, social or academic (cf.
Rey, 1996).

8. .
What can Portuguese as a mother give to engineers?
Recent research in Education supports the transversal
approach of teaching and learning the mother tongue,
which includes two directions (Sá, 2012;Valadares, 2003):
- Teaching and learning the mother tongue to develop
transversal skills related with oral and written
communication;

9. .
What can Portuguese as a mother give to engineers?
- Being aware of the fact that teaching and learning
other subjects may contribute to a better
performance in oral and written communication in
the mother tongue, because they develop other
transversal skills
 Reasoning and problem solving, Critical thinking,
Creative thinking and Technical knowledge.

10. .
What can Didactics give to the teaching of engineering?
As a researcher in Education and Didactics, along the
years, I have been trying to present some suggestions to
teach and assess oral and written communication.
They can be used in Higher Education to increase the
proficiency in oral and written communication of
students attending degrees on any subject including
engineering.

11. .
How can the teaching of engineering contribute to the development
of oral and written communication skills in the students?
Oral and written comprehension
Pre-listening/pre-reading phase
• To preview ideas and/or formulate hypotheses on the content of the text
- Listening/reading phase
• To take notes
- Post-listening/reading phase
• To discuss the information gathered in the (oral or written) text and to
compare it to the previews and hypotheses

12. .
How can the teaching of engineering contribute to the development
of oral and written communication skills in the students?
Oral and written expression/production
- Planning phase
• To do research on the topic of the (oral/written) text
• To select the relevant information
• To organize the information which was retained

13. .
How can the teaching of engineering contribute to the development
of oral and written communication skills in the students?
Oral and written expression/production
Production phase (oral texts)
• To elaborate a document to support the oral presentation, taking into account
mechanisms of oral communication (of linguistic, encyclopedic and textual
nature)
• To train the oral presentation taking into account the levels of oral expression
(of phonetic-phonological, lexical-semantic, morphosyntactic and textual
nature)
Production phase (written texts)
• To write the text taking into account global aspects (text structure and main
ideas) and local aspects (grammar and spelling)

14. .
How can the teaching of engineering contribute to the development
of oral and written communication skills in the students?
Oral and written expression/production
- Revision phase (oral texts)
• After the oral presentation, to identify the strengths and
weaknesses
- Revision phase (written texts)
• To review the text taking into account global and local aspects
in order to improve the final product

15. .
Conclusion
The development of these skills may engage the students
in individual or team work (thus developing autonomy and
collaboration)
The assessment of these competences may be formative
(when the teacher uses it to identify the problems in the
students’ performance and help them to solve them or
makes them assess their own work).

16. .
References
[1] European Commission, Key competences in the knowledge based society.
A framework of eight key competences. s.l.: European
Commission/Directorate General for Education and Culture, 2007.
[2] C. S. Gomes, J. L. Brocardo, J. V. Pedroso, J. L. A. Carrillo, L. M. Ucha, M.
Encarnação e outros, Perfil dos alunos à saída da escolaridade obrigatória.
Lisboa: Ministério da Educação,2017.
[3] B. Rey (1996).Les compétences transversales en question. Paris: ESF.
[4] C. M. Sá, Transversalidade da língua portuguesa: representações,
instrumentos,práticas e formação.Exedra,28, 2012,pp. 364-372.

17. .
References
[5] C. M. Sá, Técnicas de comunicação oral e escrita. Coleção Educação e
Formação – Cadernos Didáticos,nº 3. Aveiro:UA Editora,2018,não publicado.
[6] C. M. Sá, T. Cardoso & I. Alarcão, Relations between teaching and learning.
Evidence from meta-analysis of Language Didactics research. Education
Online,2008.
[7] L. Valadares, Transversalidade da língua portuguesa. Rio Tinto: Edições ASA,
2003.

18. Thank you for your
attention
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