“Engineers don’t look at the design documents as the holy grail”: Coordinators’ views of an English-in-the-discipline program for engineering students​

Abstract

<p>The past decade has seen a deluge of publications on cross-disciplinary teaching and learning in higher education. A few empirical studies tapped into engineering discourse, investigating the components of engineering writing (e.g., Hill et al., 2020; Lin & Morrison, 2021; Rau, 2021) or the enhancement of disciplinary communication skills (e.g., Prabhu et al., 2024; Siu et al., 2023). However, there has still been a scarcity of research underlying and allowing for a contextualized understanding of how coordinators manage and facilitate the development of an English-in-the-discipline (ED) program for engineering students. </p><p>To gain a holistic understanding of the program coordination and development across the disciplinary boundaries of language teaching and engineering, the researcher adopts Clarke and Hollingsworth’s (2002) Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (ICMPG) as it entails four analytical domains, i.e., personal domain, external domain, domain of practice, and domain of consequence. This model discusses teachers’ knowledge growth, their contextual interventions, their teaching competence in a practice-oriented environment, and the learning outcomes of their students. All these multifaceted explorations serve as a comprehensive framework to characterize the dynamics of disciplinary nature and pedagogical complexities across the disciplines. The adoption of ICMPG is anticipated to give recognition to reflective and enactive practices in such a cross-disciplinary context. Such an incorporation of ICMPG into this ED program, more importantly, helps address the call for research attempts to venture into the development of ESP practitioners (e.g., Basturkmen, 2024; Bocanegra-Valle & Basturkmen, 2019; Wu & Lau, 2021). </p><p>This longitudinal case study was conducted in one English-medium university in Hong Kong with twofold objectives: “How can ED program coordinators develop engineering-specific materials to inform ED teaching?” and “How can ED program coordinators help team members to enhance their disciplinary areas of knowledge?” To report on the nuances behind an ED program, the researcher approached one program coordinator, formerly an engineer in Silicon Valley, and one deputy program coordinator, who came from a design-related background, both of whom oversaw one ED program for final-year engineering students. Data collection spanned over two independent semesters, consisting of course artefacts, classroom observation notes, and semi-interviews with both research participants. More specifically, three semi-structured interviews, spanning three semesters, were conducted with the program coordinator to trace the dynamics of material design and team management. Two semi-structured interviews were held with the deputy program coordinator to capture his adjustments to familiarizing himself with disciplinary contents and providing timely assistance to team members. </p><p>The findings of qualitative analysis first upheld the primacy of disciplinary specificity in teaching and managing an ED program, suggesting the significance of questioning as a project tutor to guide students to justify their engineering choices. The reflections of both coordinators were enacted in working alongside engineering specialists and compiling engineering-specific feedback forms for the team members. Both coordinators’ paths to craft team members’ engineering-specific literacies were manifested through the interplay within the four analytical domains of the ICMPG.</p>