As the subtitle indicates, this book is primarily written for students attending the Access Programme for admission to the Bachelor in Engineering Studies degree (BE). (In Norwegian: Forkurs for ingeniør- og sivilingeniørutdanningen). It may be equally useful for the admission programme known as Y-veien. These are all students who have not met standard university admission requirements.

The book has a three-pronged purpose. Firstly, it helps students demonstrate the English language proficiency required for admission to a Bachelor in Engineering. The book will therefore recap key learning objectives from secondary education. Secondly, the book puts a great deal of emphasis on essential academic skills that will give students a head start in their studies. Finally, the book prepares them for a professional career in engineering.

The book will probably do more to prepare students for bachelor studies than for their later career as an engineer. Much of the curriculum and domain-specific terminology during a bachelor programme will be in English. A vast amount of relevant material on the Internet is in English too. It is therefore likely that proficiency in English will improve a student’s performance.

Finally, no one starts studying engineering because they are particularly interested in languages. Understandably, readers are less motivated to study a foreign language than studying microcontrollers, road construction, or fundamental mechanics. The book takes that into account.

Virtually every example and exercise is somehow related to engineering. Moreover, there are no chapters on English literature or American history. In this respect, it differs significantly from the curriculum at the secondary education level. Instead, much more attention is given to topics such as workplace communication and academic writing.

The emphasis on academic writing will not only prepare students for admittance to a bachelor programme; it may also give them an advantage over other students. Hardly any of the other bachelor students will have immersed themselves so thoroughly in academic and technical writing as students who have undertaken this course.

How to use the book

The book may be used in different ways. One obvious way would be to progress chronologically through the chapters. Chapters 3 to 5 are closely connected and suitable for use as a continuous module.

The first chapter is devoted to pronunciation, stress, and intonation. The justification is twofold: Generally, in most engineering jobs, speaking English may be equally important to writing and reading. The aim is not to make the students sound like native speakers; it is primarily to improve their confidence in speaking English.

There is a certain prestige associated with speaking correct English, and most students will therefore both dread the prospect of sounding “wrong” and have a desire to sound “right”. Even though basic rules of intonation are relatively simple, most students have not learned much about it. Students may therefore enjoy learning a relatively prestigious skill. The first chapter also ties in with listening and comprehension skills necessary at the workplace.

Another way to use the book is to start with a five-paragraph essay assignment (Exercise 5.1) and use that assignment to introduce, test, and rehearse essential topics from Chapters 2 through 5 such as subject-verb agreement, sentence fragments, topic sentences, formal style, and essay structure.

Starting with how to write paragraphs and essays might be more motivating for students than spending weeks on grammar and sentence construction first. Moreover, essay assignments mimic the final exam. Likewise, mastering paragraph construction is essential for students to effectively communicate in almost all written contexts. Later assignments could introduce new and more advanced aspects from the same chapters in a similar fashion.

It seems sensible to teach some of the topics in tandem with the Norwegian course of the Access Programme since the two courses overlap to a large degree. However, they will lend support to each other regardless of when they are taught. In fact, teaching similar topics across both courses but at different times may improve learning in both.

Online supporting resources

While researching for the book, we bookmarked many online English learning resources and decided to make them available to the readers. These are suitable for self-study and for students with particular needs and interests and at different proficiency levels. There are different categories of resources: quizzes and tests, guides, instructions, examples, glossaries, and more, and many of them are aimed at different levels.

These resources are freely available at: www.universitetsforlaget.no/englishforengineers

For teachers, the boxes may provide ideas and material for exercises and tests. There are resources connected to each of the six chapters in the book.

Stress, intonation, pronunciation, and translation

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