Teaching Soft Skills through Effective Language Skills to A.

P State Engineering Students

for Enhancing Employability

Mr A. Naresh M.A., ENGLISH, (Ph. D) Research Scholar, OSMANIA UNIVERSITY, A.P- 500006.

9/26/2011

Supervisor :
Dr. D. Venkateswarulu, Professor of English, Department of English, University College of Arts & Social Sciences, Osmania University, Hyderabad. Pin 500007, A.P, India.

This paper tries to explain the need of imparting employability skills (soft skills) in engineering curriculum to increase the skilled manpower in any chosen field of an engineering graduate. It has also suggested a few useful ideas where each and every institution has to follow, to introspect and to deliver qualitative education to the future engineers.

Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

Abstract for ICOPE- 2012.

Title: Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering

Students (especially Andhra Pradesh state) for Enhancing Employability.
The present paper investigates the need of imparting employability skills in Engineering English curriculum to assist the Engineering graduates in getting employability. The main purpose of this research is to present the possible ways of teaching English for engineering graduates with emphasis on the employability skills set. In the global context, students of engineering need a specific set of effective language skills along with requisite life skills for their success in both education and career. As teachers of the English language, we should make use of the space available within the curriculum to bring about this silent revolution which fosters engineering graduates be aware of the skills demand by the employers/ industries/ organizations to increase Indias skilled manpower. In the first chapter the paper describes the introduction of English in engineering education and its pivotal role in getting job placement. The second chapter of the paper discusses the process to develop employability skills in the college campus and how to get maximum benefit out of mastering employability skills in prior. The third chapter explains the need of modeled design for employability skills in engineering English curriculum. The fourth chapter of the paper illustrates the out coming results and discussion of this topic.

Key Words: Employability.

Employability skills, Engineering English, Curriculum design, Enhance

Chapter 1. Introduction to Engineering English and its role in getting Employability Engineering Employability in India, English teaching in Engineering Colleges, Components of Engineering English Education Chapter 2. Need to Develop Employability Skills among engineering graduates Introduction of Employability Skills, How to implement Employability Skills to Engineering Students, How to assess and mentor an engineering student to make industry ready Chapter 3. Adaptable effective Teaching Methodologies for teaching Employability Skills
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

Present Curriculum Design in Engineering English, Requisite changes in Designing Curriculum to suit Employability Skills set, Appropriate Teaching Methodologies to enhance Employability among the engineering students Chapter 4. Findings and Conclusions Chapter 5. Works cited

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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

Introduction to Engineering English and its role in getting Employability Employability has been defined as a set of achievementsskills, understandings, and personal attributesthat make graduates more likely to gain employability and be successful in their chosen occupations by the Engineering Subject Centre of the UK Higher Education Academy. Though, employability is a term with huge definitions and dimensions, we need to concentrate on only three set of things: they are knowledge, Skills, Values and Attitudes. Employability skills are very essential in the current global job market. These skills can be termed as soft skills, which play a pivotal role in campus interview selection process. At college level education, it will be a prolific venture to incorporate these skills in the syllabus. This will certainly help students develop their employability skills and it will make them execute the assigned works efficiently in any institution after the selection process. This paper tries to list the skills needed for the students to get employed in reputed companies and show how these skills are important for them to work in a performance oriented work environment. To fulfill these aims of this paper, the researcher has read some interrelated articles and also collected data from students and placement officers of various engineering institutions as research tool. In India after a profound increment of engineering colleges in number, the number of out coming engineering graduates has also increased. Therefore it resulted in two major dimensions: the first one is India has to be ranked one among other countries based upon the skilled manpower, theoretically speaking but in reality it is partly true. The second one is nothing but India has more unemployed professionals across whole world after China. The best reason for this is neglecting the employability skills, which are very essential and have to be inculcated in their engineering curriculum for getting employability soon after their education. Surprisingly, India produces more than 500,000 engineering graduates every year which is almost five times to the USA alone and a little less than twice of all that Europe produces. Of this over 500,000 engineering graduates the Andhra Pradesh state alone produces more than 150,000 students. But unfortunately the ratio of the employable professional students in India is below 30 % of the huge number we have shown above. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) held a conference on linking education to employability on April 21, 2009. Mr. Vijay Thadani, Chairman, CII Education committee and CEO, NIIT Ltd. Said The backbone of a
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

countrys growth story is the education system, which is responsible for equipping the human capital of the country. India should be able to consistently produce the finest and most creative work force. Education becomes relevant only when the knowledge acquired is applied and absorbed into the mainstream. The link between education and employability needs to be strengthened. There is a big boom in manpower requirements in IT industries in India in recent years. Presently India is aiming at becoming the major source of manpower in IT and other technical fields in the global scenario. To achieve this target, enhancement of employability of graduates coming out of engineering colleges are very important. Role of engineering colleges as production centre of employable manpower is becoming dominant in this situation. But we are not at all at par with the same thing we discussed above. For achieving that, integration of effective teaching methodologies and necessary supporting processes in the curriculum may enhance the performance of the graduates from the engineering institutes. The challenge before the industry does not lie in the supply of talent but rather that of employability, Azim Premji, Chairman Wipro Ltd, said on the occasion of Teachers Day with the launch of Mission 10X- an educational initiative aimed at promoting systematic changes to current teaching-learning paradigms in engineering, he said the challenge lay in ensuring that the talent meets the needs of the corporate world. He also added that there is 20% of increasing engineering colleges a year, but we are far behind in getting all the engineering graduates to be employable. It is just happening only because of unstructured curriculum which never tries to inculcate employability skills i.e., soft skills in it. In India, except for a few autonomous institutes, all engineering colleges are affiliated to different universities. These universities frame curriculum for various programs and the syllabus for various courses coming under these programs. Some studies on scientific and technical manpower development (STMDI, 2000) and employability profile of fresh engineers (Ghani, 2002) in India points out the inadequacy of the curriculum followed by these universities. As we discussed above in this paper the three set of things we need to integrate with the regular curriculum so that we can enhance the chances of getting higher employability among the engineering graduates. The first and foremost skill among them is Knowledge, which is the basic database of a professional engineer. It helps an engineer graduate to transmit the bookish knowledge to the practical things wherever required. The second is Skill, which are indifferent to everyone. Skills are basically the application of the
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

knowledge. The last but not the least is the failure of the engineering curricula to address Attitudes and Values systematically have had unfortunate consequences. Engineers often make decisions without feeling a need to take into account any of the social, ethical, and moral consequences of those decisions, believing that those considerations are in someone elses purview. Need to Develop Employability Skills for Engineering Graduates The present paper tries to investigate the link between language skills and its importance to be taught along with employability skills set in Engineering curriculum. In view of the factors would enable the engineer graduates to enhance the chances of getting higher employability. Teaching language skills along with the employability skills in engineering colleges should be encouraged and implemented so that many of the engineering graduates will get employment before or after their course completion. As we discussed at the introduction of the thesis only 30% out of 500,000 engineering graduates are only getting employability a year. For this poor result of employability major factors are the old lecturing method in the class, poor environment of the college, profound and inadequacy curriculum for the entire four-year course, and so on; In this study I try to explain several methods of teaching language skills integrated with employability skills set where an engineering graduate can become a skilled manpower to face any challenge in the chosen career. However, Knight and Yorke (2000) cited in Datta et al (2007:p.19) argue that changing the curriculum to suit employability has four major drawbacks: 1. the curriculum focuses on short-term goals, 2. old is thrown out for the new, 3. the change is too fast in some cases, 4. the change is only on paper, in other words, there is absolutely no change. This clearly illustrates that shaping the curriculum to meet industries' needs can sometimes end up as a mere eyewash. Krishna and Brihmadesam (2006) cited in Datta et al (2007: p.21) argue that soft skills with an emphasis on communication skills are not context or class-neutral and tend to be vested with the educated, professional urban middle class. They label this trend as highly regressive and short-sighted. It is clear that most of engineering colleges across our country has not included soft skills (employability skills) in academic curriculum. Hence it is resulted poor skilled manpower in corporate industry. Therefore, they have been relying on outsourcing training companies to make their employees industry ready professionals. Instead of outsourcing the soft skills training it is recommended to bring soft skills within the curriculum. The present English course in the Engineering colleges communication skills alone. The other aspects of
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

soft skills can be brought in the curriculum irrespective of the subject. More thrust and prominent importance has to be given for role play, group discussion, seminar, presentation, questioning, brain storming, book reviews, interaction etc. This change will initially be more challenging (bringing a thorough change in teaching methodology in the existing system) but if we bring this sort of change in the existing curriculum this will result in enhancing the skills set of the students and their personality as a professional. Soft skills training need not be limited only with English curriculum but also it could also be extended to all the other subjects. It is recommended to bring about this silent revolution with enormous changes like the entire teaching should be learner centered approach rather than teacher centered. The industry people do not want to spend their time on soft skills training again instead they expect the candidates who are industry ready. In such a case the necessary changes have to be made in the teaching methodology and curriculum as well to meet the expectations of the corporate industry. A lot of time and money spent by the corporate can be saved by introducing necessary changes in the curriculum teaching methodology. It also helps to change the engineering graduates to well shaped professionals.

Adaptable effective Teaching Methodologies for teaching Employability Skills Through the use of both primary and secondary data, it is found that the teaching language skills along with the set of employability skills would help the engineering graduate to increase the chances of being a skilled manpower to be placed in the chosen field. As we have seen most of all our Engineering Colleges in India have got adopted to lecturing method except a few autonomous and other institutions where there is no scope for the students to sharpen or exhibit their inborn skills and also the skills they have got unknowably from the class room. As the teachers of English we have to follow adequate teaching methodologies for effective teaching language skills along with the life skills which would help them to shape as skilled manpower. China is now a constant threat for India in terms of implementing advancement in technologies compared to many other developed countries. It has got plenty of options placing higher skilled manpower and the only drawback for it is language inefficiency. And there are busy in mastering that and soon they may achieve it. Then India has to face the major unemployment factor in and outside the country if that happen so. To get rid of this major problem of unemployment and scarcity of skilled manpower in our country we need to inculcate such soft skills like employability skills in
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

their regular academic curriculum itself. Of course a few esteemed, autonomous and university engineering colleges have been implementing the same we discussed above. Though it is difficult to keep all the engineering colleges under one roof technically, but we can design the same curriculum for imparting these soft skills and employability skills set common for all the engineering institutes across India would definitely change the scenario of unskilled engineering graduates (manpower). A wide survey has been brought out after studying many engineering colleges located in and around Hyderabad city and also a few district colleges in Andhra Pradesh state it is found that there is no such significant importance has been implementing in most of the colleges especially on this deployment of employability and soft skills teaching. In Andhra Pradesh most of the engineering institutions fall under JNTU, Hyderabad where the same university introduced English language and lab for B. Tech first year students in 2005. After that it has also implemented advanced English language lab for B. Tech third year students with special care. Though JNTU, Hyderabad has introduced and made students to aware the importance of English language it has not reaped fruitful results in placing the engineering graduates as employable. It could not ignite the minds of the engineering graduates in both learning and applying the knowledge of language along with soft skills- especially in semi urban and rural engineering institutions have affected a lot with the less placement results. The present paper explains two modeled method of imparting the employability or soft skills to engineering graduates to make them industry ready. Separate subject model, the first model offers specific courses and elective courses to develop soft skills. In this model, students are encouraged to learn soft skills as supplementary course (certificate course), which is in no way related to the main courses. For example a student who is pursuing engineering course is encouraged to be trained various soft skills aspects like Communication Skills, Time Management, Team Building skills and Positive Attitude etc. However, such an approach will require an increase in the number of credits and time spent for the particular programme. But the Embedded Model incorporates the soft skills in the teaching and learning activities across the curriculum. This model does not require students to choose soft skills as additional courses as it will be a part of the learning outcomes of the respective courses especially linked up with English language curriculum. It includes activities like questioning, class discussion, brain storming, team work, presentation, role play, project, field work and site visits. However, this model is a challenging one as the teachers have to
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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

master specific teaching and learning skills and then apply these skills in the respective courses for the specific programme. Moreover, this model is student centered learning and it focuses an experimental learning, problem-based learning. Besides it gives students the practical experience. Some of the appropriate strategies and methods that are practical and learner friendly which include i) learning by questioning, ii) cooperative learning, iii) problem-based learning (PBL), iv) e-learning. Apart from this, there are certain informal programmes that also develop soft skills among students. Thus a future model for teaching language skills in the classroom alongside employability skills is to be developed, to be discussed and to be implemented for high skilled manpower to provide better job opportunities for all the graduates. Findings and Conclusions In most of the Indian engineering colleges, students are from different academic backgrounds coming from different places having different mother tongues. So, there is a need to provide them a common platform to make them competent enough to face the real challenges of todays corporate world. English is the language which can remove the lingual difference among them and give them a common medium to communicate. According to our findings that students with skills like positive attitude, effective communication, problem solving, time management, team spirit, self-confidence, handling criticism, flexibility, etc which are also known as soft skills as a whole, have much more better chances of survival in the tough corporate world compared to the students who are lacking in the soft skills Employability skills are very essential in the current global job market. These skills can be termed as soft skills, which are given utmost importance in campus interview. At college level education, it will be a productive venture to incorporate these skills in the syllabus. This will certainly help students develop their employability skills and it will make them execute the assigned works efficiently in any institution after the selection process. This paper tries to explain the need for imparting the soft skills (employability skills) for the students to get employed in reputed companies and show how these skills are important for them to work in a performance oriented work environment.

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Teaching Effective Language Skills to Engineering Students (especially Andhra Pradesh State) for Enhancing Employability.

Majority of the placement officers say that the soft skills are very much essential for the students to succeed in the campus interviews. According to some placement officers, the students who do not have requisite skills set are getting rejected at the time of their campus interviews. The placement officers also say that in most of the leading engineering colleges soft skills training is being outsourced. Soft skills training and personality development programmes are conducted once in every year for 2 to 3 days. Only this much is done by the training outfits. The placement officers suggest that the soft skills training has to be incorporated in the curriculum and it should be spread over all the four years of their B.E. /B.Tech degree program. This will enhance the students performance in the campus interviews. The placement officers strongly feel that soft skills should be imbibed with the existing curriculum. Both the technological skills and soft skills are equally important for a successful engineering professional. Moreover, this will be highly helpful in their career growth and sustainable employment. Training on soft skills becomes more relevant in a country like India where the education system does not delve into personality development. Soft skills training is essential because we do not have it in our academic curricula. Therefore, corporate houses have to take up the task of grooming employees who are the link between the company and the external world, so that they are able to present themselves better. Instead of outsourcing the soft skills training it id recommended to bring soft skills within the curriculum. The present English course in the Engineering colleges communication skills alone. The other aspects of soft skills can be brought in the curriculum irrespective of the subject. More thrust has to be given for role play, group discussion, seminar, presentation, questioning, brain storming, book reviews, interaction etc. This will initially be more challenging i.e. bringing a thorough change in teaching methodology in the existing system but if we bring this sort of change in the existing curriculum this will result in enhancing the skills set of the students and their personality as a professional. Soft skills training need not be confined only with English curriculum but also it could be extended to all the other subjects also. Initially it would be more challenging but it would be like by the learners. This will bring in lot more changes in the learning as well as teaching. The entire teaching should be learner centered approach rather than teacher centered. The industry people do not want to spend their time on soft skills training again instead they expect the candidates who are industry ready. In such a case the necessary changes have to be made in the teaching methodology and curriculum as well to meet the expectations of the corporate. A lot of time and money spent by the corporate can be saved by introducing necessary changes in the curriculum teaching methodology.
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