The course aims to develop: - written and oral comprehension skills in dealing with texts and articles on common topics in engineering; - ability to reflect on the text and article content on topics regarding engineering; - awareness of features typical of technical English in the field of engineering; - aquisition of specialist terms which allow students to communicate successfully in an international environment.

Good English language skills are a prerequisite (B1 level of the European Framework of Reference for Languages).

1. Technology in Use: describing technical functions and applications, explaining how technology works, emphasising technical advantages, simplifying and illustrating technical explanations. 2. Materials and Technology: describing specific materials, categorising materials, specifying and describing properties, discussing quality issues. 3. Engineering Design: working with drawings, discussing dimentions and precission, describing design phases and procedures, resolving design problems. 4. Breaking Point: describing types of technical problems, assessing and interpreting faults, describing the causes of faults, describing repairs and maintanance. 5. Technical development: discussing technical requirements, suggesting ideas and solutions, assessing feasibility, describing improvements and redesigns. 6. Monitoring and Control: discussing automated systems, referring to measurable parameters, discussing readings and trends, giving approximate figures. 7. Material types, Concrete, Wood, Mechanical fasteners 1, Mechanical fasteners 2, Material formats, Numbers and decimals.

Face-to-face lessons, 30 hours (3 ECTS credits).

Ibbotson, M. "Cambridge English for Engineering", Cambridge University Press, 2008. Ibbotson, M. “Professional English in Use Engineering”, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Exam: Written test;

Exam: Written exam - (not computer-based) the exam will consist of: 1) Cloze test -based on a scientific text of the type covered during the course (tests linguistic/structural preparation) 2) Reorder sentences - where they will have to reconstruct the sentence using the words provided (tests linguistic/structural preparation) 2) Gap-fill exercise - based on a scientific English text (tests knowledge of the appropriate vocabulary) 3) Sentence matching, where they will have to match sentence endings (tests the ability to scan for key words, identify synonyms and paraphrasing, recognise grammatical structures). Total score expressed in a mark out of 30. Pass mark 18/30. Esame scritto - (non informatizzato) l'esame consisterà in: 1) Cloze test su un testo scientifico del tipo di quelli trattati durante il corso (verifica la preparazione linguistico/strutturale) 2) Reorder sentences dove dovranno ricostruire la frase in base alle parole fornite (verifica la preparazione linguistico/strutturale) 2) Gap-fill sempre su un testo di inglese scientifico a tema del corso (verifica la conoscenza del lessico appropriato) 3) Sentence matching dove dovranno accoppiare inizio e fine della frase (verifica la comprensione del testo scientifico, la capacità di identificare le parole chiave, i sinonimi e riconoscere le strutture grammaticali) Il totale del punteggio del test sarà calcolato in 30esimi, ed il minimo per superare il test sarà 18/30.

In addition to the message sent by the online system, students with disabilities or Specific Learning Disorders (SLD) are invited to directly inform the professor in charge of the course about the special arrangements for the exam that have been agreed with the Special Needs Unit. The professor has to be informed at least one week before the beginning of the examination session in order to provide students with the most suitable arrangements for each specific type of exam.