Case study at ESP classes as mode of language adaptation to future engineering profession

Abstract

In the current era of rapid modern society growth and Ukraine’s integration into the European community, professional proficiency in English is a prerequisite for engineering personnel. This suggests that the national higher education system needs to meet new standards and that student’s personal and professional qualities are essential. In this regard, it is crucial to realize that, to properly train future engineers, English language programs must imitate the most common professional scenarios to establish environments that are similar to those of professional foreign language communication. All of this is made feasible by employing the case study approach in English language lessons as a replicated model of an engineer’s professional activities. The article aims to investigate and bolster the advantages of the case study approach for engineering students learning ESP. The experiment involved 82 engineering majors from the Podillia State University (Ukraine) who had finished the compulsory Business English course in the academic year 2022–2023. The respondents were divided into two groups: the first group learned languages using the conventional way, and the second group employed the case study approach. The data were confirmed using statistical calculation methods (namely the p-value). The experiment results support the theory that the case study methodology is a better approach to learning a foreign language than the conventional approach. The study findings show how useful the case study approach was, assuming both professional language proficiency and immersion in real-world language contexts.