Portuguese language, didactics and engineering: an (im)probable relationship?

Abstract

The society of the 21st century has some keywords: globalism, transversality, skills. The realities they refer to affect every scientific area and should not be ignored by education, independently of what is being taught/learned. Communication is related with all these tendencies. It is global and helps to install globalism. It is transversal, either in verbal or non-verbal form. It develops essential skills. Furthermore, the mastering of communication in the mother tongue is an essential element in this context, which importance is recognized both in political statements and educational directives, including the Bologna Process, which is now being developed in Higher Education after its adoption during the first decade of this century. Being able to communicate effectively in one’s mother tongue – in oral or written form – is an essential component of any profession, and the training necessary to prepare students for their future professional field may contribute to a better domain of the mother tongue. In this paper, we intend to show that within the teaching/learning of Portuguese as a mother tongue, there are strategies and knowledge that can lead to the development of skills essential to be a good engineer in the 21st century working market and to show how they can be used within the teaching of engineering to contribute to the development of oral and written communication skills in the students.