THE GLOBAL ENGINEERS LANGUAGE SKILLS (GELS) NETWORK: AN UPDATE

In 2015, three language teachers working with student engineers at different European universities founded the Global Engineers Language Skills (GELS) network. The teachers’ aims were to investigate and categorize necessary and desirable language and communication skills for engineers and ensure that these findings actively support the teaching and learning of additional languages in technical universities and engineering departments. We presented preliminary results of our work at CDIO’s international conference in 2016. In this paper, we summarize the network’s development since then, interpret the results of our investigations, and describe our work to disseminate our results and promote effective language and communication skills for engineering students. We also summarize our more recent work on enhancing the GELS framework of skills, applying for Erasmus+ KA2 funding, developing the GELS network from three to thirty universities through training events, integrating intercultural communication skills in our work, and teaching and learning through the medium of English.