Includes glossary.

"English for Mechanical Engineering is a skills-based course designed specifically for students of mechanical engineering who are about the enter English-medium tertiary level studies. It provides carefully graded practice and progression in the key academic skills that all students need, such as listening to lectures and speaking in seminars. It also equips students with the specialist language they need to participate successfully within a mechanical engineering department. Extensive listening exercises come frome mechanical engineering lectures, and all reading texts are taken from the same field of study. There is also a focus throughout on the key mechanical engineering vocabulary that students will need.

Listening: how to understand and take effective notes on extended lectures, including how to follow the argument and identify the speaker's point of view.

Speaking: how to participate effectively in a variety of realistic situations, from seminars to presentations, including how to develop an argument and use stance markers.

Reading: how to understand a wide range of texts, from academic textbooks to Internet articles, including how to analyze complex sentences and identify such things as the writer's stance.

Writing: how to produce coherent and well-structured assignments, including such skills as paraphrasing and the use of the appropriate academic phrases.

Vocabulary: a wide range of activities to develop students' knowledge and use of key vocabulary, both in the field of psychology and of academic study in general.

Vocabulary and Skills banks: a reference source to provide students with revision of the key words and phrases and skills presented in each unit.

Full transcripts of all listening exercises." (Book Cover)

BOOK MAP

Unit 1: WHAT IS ENGINEERING? (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Definition of engineering - Branches of engineering - The history of mechanical engineering
Vocabulary Focus: Words from general English with a special meaning in engineering - Prefixes and suffixes
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening - Preparing for a lecture - Predicting lecture content from the introduction - Understanding lecture organization - Choosing an appropriate form of notes - Making lecture notes
Speaking: Speaking from notes

Unit 2: ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENTS (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Engineering achievements in the 20th century - Refrigeration and air-conditioning - Codes and standards for machines
Vocabulary Focus: English-English dictionaries: headwords, definition, parts of speech, phonemes, stress markers, countable/uncountable, transitive/intransitive
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Using research questions to focus on relevant information in a text - Using topic sentences to get an overview of the text
Writing: Writing topic sentences - Summarizing a text

Unit 3: FORCES ON MATERIALS (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Materials in engineering - Forces on materials: stress and strain - Five types of forces
Vocabulary Focus: Stress patterns in multi-syllable words - Prefixes
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening: Preparing for a lecture - Predicting lecture content - Making lecture notes - Using different information sources
Speaking: Reporting research findings - Formulating questions

Unit 4: COMPUTERS IN ENGINEERING (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM) - Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) - Using computers for research
Vocabulary Focus: Computer jargon - Abbreviations and acronyms - Discourse and stance markers - Verb and noun suffixes
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Identifying topic development within a paragraph - Using the Internet effectively - Evaluating Internet search results
Writing: Reporting research findings

Unit 5: MEMS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Features of MEMS and nanotechnologies - Design and applications - Safety and ethical issues concerning nanotechnology
Vocabulary Focus: Word sets: synonyms, antonyms, etc. - The language of trends - Common lecture language
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening: Understanding "signpost language" in lectures - Using symbols and abbreviations in note-taking
Speaking: Making effective contributions to a seminar

Unit 6: FRICTION (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Characteristics and types of friction - Uses of friction in mechanical engineering design - Tribology
Vocabulary Focus: Synonyms, replacement subjects, etc., for sentence-level paraphrasing
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Locating key information in complex sentences
Writing: Reporting findings from other sources: paraphrasing - Writing complex sentences

Unit 7: THE FUTURE OF CARS: BATTERY POWER (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Battery production - Car technologies; internal combustion engine, electric motors and hybrids - Research and development
Vocabulary Focus: Compound nouns - Fixed phrases from mechanical engineering - Fixed phrases from academic English - Common lecture language
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening: Understanding speaker emphasis
Speaking: Asking for clarification - Responding to queries and requests for clarification

Unit 8: ENGINEERING AND SUSTAINABILITY (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Concepts in engineering and sustainability - Sustainability challenges for engineering
Vocabulary Focus: Synonyms - Nouns from verbs - Definitions - Common "direction" verbs in essay titles (discuss, analyze, evaluate, etc.)
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Understanding dependent clauses with passives
Writing: Paraphrasing - Expanding notes into complex sentences - Recognizing different essay types/structures: descriptive - analytical - comparison/evaluation - argument - Writing essay plans - Writing essays

Unit 9: HEALTH AND SAFETY (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Health and safety regulations - Health and safety in the workplace - Case studies: oil rig disasters - Case studies: rail accident
Vocabulary Focus: Fixed phrases from health and safety - Fixed phrases from academic English
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening: Using the Cornell note-taking system - Recognizing digressions in lectures
Speaking: Making effective contributions to a seminar - Referring to other people's ideas in a seminar

Unit 10: ACCIDENT ANALYSIS IN CONSTRUCTION (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Case study: Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse - Case studies: 'design and build' contracts
Vocabulary Focus: "Neutral" and "marked" words - Technical and semi-technical words from engineering - Fixed phrases from academic English
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Recognizing the writer's stance and level of confidence or tentativeness - Inferring implicit ideas
Writing: Writing situation-problem-solution-evaluation essays/writing assignments - Using direct quotations - Compiling a bibliographic/reference list

Unit 11: WIND TURBINES (Listening + Speaking)
Topics: Development of wind power - Wind turbines: design problems and solutions - Horizontal and vertical axis turbines
Vocabulary Focus: Words/phrases used to link ideas (moreover, as a result, etc.) - Stress patterns in noun phrases and compounds - Fixed phrases from academic English - Words/phrases related to wind energy and wind turbines
SKILLS FOCUS:
Listening: Recognizing the speaker's stance - Writing up notes in full
Speaking: Building an argument in a seminar - Agreeing/disagreeing

Unit 12: WATER ENGINEERING (Reading + Writing)
Topics: Types of water and water distribution - Desalination technologies - Laboratory report: flow in pipes
Vocabulary Focus: Definitions - Referring back using pronouns and synonyms - Words/phrases to describe mechanical processes in water engineering - Common verb + noun phrases used in laboratory reports
SKILLS FOCUS:
Reading: Understanding how ideas in a text are linked - Note-making from texts - Labelling a diagram
Writing: Writing a comparison summary from notes - Writing a laboratory report section from notes

Upper intermediate to proficiency ; IELTS 5.0 - 7.5+ ; CEF B2 - C2.