Fostering Autonomy: A Fundamental Issue to Develop Engineering Students English Communication Skills at Polines

Dewi Anggraeni Politeknik Negeri Semarang Abstract. English communication skills play an important role in supporting the success of a worker. As a vocational education, Politeknik Negeri Semarang (Polines) should be able to equip its graduates with sufficient skills to meet todays industrial need. However, it has been a problem for English lecturers to help the students to gain these skills due to the limited classroom time. This article attempts to analyze how fostering students autonomy can help develop the students English communication skills. Communication skills here refers to the ones needed especially by engineers such as technical writing, public speaking, working with groups, speed reading and talking with people. The term autonomy is defined as the students ability to control and make decisions on their learning in which lecturers can take part in the process of gaining the autonomy. The reason of fostering autonomy deals with developing learners intrinsic motivation. Lecturers can help promote autonomy through various ways such as building curriculum that will support autonomy, assigning project work to students, etc. Key-words: engineering students, communication skills, autonomy

INTRODUCTION
Talberg (2006) highlights Huckin and Olsens (1991) thought on the importance of communication skill among engineers: Scientists and engineers may be technically brilliant and creative, but unless they can convince co-workers, clients, and supervisors of their worth, their technical skills will be unnoticed, unappreciated, and unused. In a word, if technical people cannot communicate to others what they are doing and why it is important, it is they and their excellent technical skills that will be superfluous. From this perspective, communication skills are not just handy; they are critical tools for success, even survival, in real world environments. Being able to communicate well to others, whether it is in written or oral form, will bring great influence to the success of professional life of engineering graduates in the future. This communicative skills refers to the ability to communicate in foreign languages including English. Previous research in the field of engineering showed that English language is of paramount importance in the academic and professional lives of the engineering students (Basturkman, 1998; Pendergrass et al., 2001; Pritchard & Nasr, 2004, Joseba, 2005; Sidek et al., 2006; Hui, 2007; Venkatraman & Prema, 2007; AlTamini & Shuib, 2009). Tomorrows engineers will have to master English communication skills even more than todays engineers do (Talberg, 2006). Professional skills alone cannot ensure promotion at workplace. Therefore, the future specialists should be ready to understand their peers, react accordingly in compliance with the given situation, and form external relationships that help strengthen and extend traditional competences while Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora Vol. 12 No. 1, April 2012 1

responding to the demands of globalization, mass customization, enhanced quality, and rapid technological change (Mascarenhas, Baveja, Jamil, 1998). In Polines English has been the major foreign language being taught in every department. However, English lecturers at engineering departments have very limited time portion to teach English. As a result, many engineering students graduated with deficient communication skills. Therefore, the lecturers must find the answer to this problem so that they can manage this limited time properly otherwise, they cannot complete the desired outcome, developing their students communicative competence. One of the alternate ways is that they have to help the students to become more independent in learning English. The term independent here does not mean that the students will have to learn English by themselves. The definition of independent refers to the way the students manage their learning process. The lecturers will not be the main source of learning or the only ones who take control of all the learning process. With the help from lecturers, the students should be able to set their goals of learning English and make most of the efforts to realize the goals. This condition is widely understood as autonomous learning process. This article examines how by fostering autonomous learning the engineering students of Polines can develop their English communication skills. Specifically, it will explore several issues. Firstly, it will assess the communication skills required by engineering graduates. It will then describe the concept of autonomous learning. Finally, it will evaluate how autonomous learning can help engineering students of Polines gaining their communication skills.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS FOR ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Competence in most professions involves the practice of three skills, they are cognitive skills, technical skills and communication skills (Hargie, 2006). Therefore, engineering students must be equipped with these skills. According to Huckin and Olsen (1991) in Mcmahon & Escribano (2008), communication skills are critical tool in order to succeed in real world environment. This is based on a survey carried out by American Society of Engineering Education, which states that out of 4057 responses from working engineers, communication skills rank above any other type of skills. Communication skills refer to the ability to interact effectively with clients and other professionals (Hargie, 2006). In general, communication skills are the ability to use language (receptive) and express (expressive) information. The generally known types of communication skills are Intra-personal communication skills, Interpersonal communication skills, Non-verbal communication skills, and Mass communication. Intra-personal communication skills engage individual reflection, contemplation, and meditation. Interpersonal communication skills are direct, head-tohead communication that occurs between two persons. It is a dialogue or a conversation between two or more people. Non verbal communication skills consists of features such as body language, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, etc. Mass communication is recognized with tools of modern mass media such as social media marketing, which embraces books, the press, cinema, television, radio, etc. It is a means of conveying messages to an entire population (www.communicationskills.co.in). Related to the world of engineering, communication skills comprises of technical writing, public speaking, working with groups, speed reading and talking with people (Mcmahon & Escribano, 2008). Other source (Scienceuniverse.edu.au.com) provides the following illustration to elaborate communication skills needed by engineering students.

Fostering Autonomy: A Fundamental Issue to Develop Engineering Students English Communication Skill at Polines (Dewi Anggraeni)

Oral
Presentation Audience Awareness Critical Listening Body Language

Written
Academic Writing Revision and editing Critical reading Presentation of data

Communication Skills
Non-Verbal
Audience Awareness Personal Presentation Body Language

Taken from: Scienceuniverse.edu.au.com in Mehta (2002) In order to help the students to develop these communications skills, teachers or lecturers should design and develop a course that will equip the students will these skills. Lecturers should also decide the best strategy to implement this design based on the learning environment. Lecturers can, for example, help the students building their communication skills by creating a lesson that involves many in-class practices. However, based on the scenario explained previously, in Polines the English lecturers at engineering departments have very limited time that make them difficult to help their students improving their communication skills.

DEFINITION OF AUTONOMY
The issue on autonomy related to the world of ELT has been spreading vastly since around ten years ago. However, in Polines, autonomy has not been raised a lot by English lecturers both in their classroom and at many English teaching forums. This condition may result in misconception on the idea of autonomy or autonomous learning among lecturers. Some lecturers label autonomy as the ability to learn without any help from teacher. Indeed, it happens also at some other places. Learner autonomy is often equated with independent out-of-class learning in which learners are in control of all aspects of their learning process. In this view, an autonomous learner is only one who is intrinsically motivated and learns outside the classroom, alone, and with no need for support from the teacher (Hafner & Miller, 2011). Actually, in promoting autonomy, lecturers can take the part of a supportive and facilitative role by encouraging students to take an active part in decision-making and problem solving, and offering them guidance (Lee, 2011). Therefore, in autonomous leaning, it does not mean that students will have to work everything out on their own. Benson (2007) in Nielson (2011) views that, learners do not develop the ability to self-direct their learning simply by being placed in situations where they have no other option (p. 22). This statement indicates that autonomous learner is independent in the inside but still need interpersonal support on the outside (Nielson 2011). The main idea behind learner autonomy in this article is that students should take responsibility for their learning, rather than be dependent entirely on the teacher (Holec, 1981). Benson (2001) describes autonomous learner as those who are able to develop knowledge from direct experience, not those who give responses to someones instruction. This means that the Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora Vol. 12 No. 1, April 2012 3

teachers still have the role in helping the students to develop the autonomy either inside or outside the classroom.

REASONS FOR PROMOTING AUTONOMY

There are many reasons of why autonomy among students should be promoted. The main reason is that at the heart of learner autonomy lays the concept of learner motivation (Fukuda, Sakata & Takeuchi, 2011). In the world of English language teaching, the teachers may be able to provide all facilities to support the process of learning. However, any kind of facilities is not a guarantee that the learning will occur among the students unless they are willing to be part of it (Scharle & Szabo, 2000). Autonomy will develop students awareness of their need of learning through self-reflection that will lead to intrinsic motivation. Another reason why fostering autonomy is important is that language is too complex and varied. It will take a long time before the students can really gain all the skills of communication. The teachers will not always be around to help so they must have the ability to take charge of their own learning especially after they leave their formal English classes at school and college (Harmer, 2007). Further reasons for promoting autonomy are suggested by Cotterall (1995) in Aliponga, et al. (2002). They mention three important reasons of why learner autonomy need to be developed: philosophical, pedagogical and practical. The philosophical reason involves the learners right to make choices about their learning. The pedagogical reason argues that adults demonstrably learn more, and more effectively, when they are consulted about dimensions such as the pace, sequence, mode of instruction and even the content of what they are studying (Candy, 1988). The practical argument for promoting learner autonomy is that learners need to be able to learn on their own because they do not always have access to the kind or amount of instruction they need to become proficient.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Chan (2001) indentifies several characteristics of autonomous learner. They are goal oriented, well organized, hard working, initiative, enthusiastic about learning, flexible, active, willing to ask questions, and making use of every opportunity to improve their learning. Earlier in 1993, Dickinson (in Koak, 2003) has also mentioned four characteristics of autonomous learner. Firstly, they can identify what is going on in their classes. Secondly, autonomous learners are capable of formulating their own learning objectives, in parallel with or even in addition to their teachers. Thirdly, they are able to select and implement appropriate learning strategies. Lastly, autonomous learners can monitor the effectiveness of their use of strategies and make necessary changes for them.

HOW CAN TEACHERS FOSTER LEARNER AUTONOMY?

A good teacher is not a person who can develop a students memory so that he can repeat facts and pass test. A good teacher is the one who is able to train learners to function better while studying. Voller (1997) in Naizhao and Yanling (2008) identifies three roles for teachers working on an autonomous pedagogy. They are as a facilitator, as a counselor and as a resource. As a facilitator, teacher is the one who should assist the students by providing active learning resources, develop students motivation and awareness in the learning process. Teacher as counselor means that he or she must guide and provide consultation for the students while as a resource it requires him/her to provide information for the students. 4 Fostering Autonomy: A Fundamental Issue to Develop Engineering Students English Communication Skill at Polines (Dewi Anggraeni)

To start fostering autonomy, the teachers can first identify their students learning strategies through questionnaires, charts, etc (Harmer, 2007). Next, teachers can train the students to recognize different learning strategies. The students need to be familiar with learning strategies so that they can find out which of them are the most appropriate to direct their own learning, that is, to help them focus on how to learn rather than on what to learn (Macia et.al, 2003). The learning strategies are those labeled cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. Cognitive strategies suggest the steps used in learning or problem-solving. Those steps include direct analysis, transformation, or synthesis of learning materials. Metacognitive strategies involve a range of procedure such as planning, prioritising, setting goals, and self-management. When they are already familiar with these strategies, the teacher can then raise their awareness on what strategies that they use daily and reflect on it. According to Benson (2001) there are six approaches that teacher can use to support autonomy. The first one is resource-based approach that concerns with independent use of learning materials. Next is technology-based approach that related with independent interaction with educational technologies. The third is classroom-based approach. It deals with learner control over planning and evaluation of classroom learning (power to make decisions). The fourth is curriculum-based approach that involves learner control over curriculum as a whole. Next is teacher-based approach. It emphasizes role of the teacher and teacher education in practice of fostering autonomy among learners. The last is learner-based approach. It has to do with the development of autonomous learning skills. Teachers are given freedom to choose the approach that will suit them as well as their students at best. Teachers may involve the use of technology to support autonomy. Based on Wangs (2010) point of view, computer-aided autonomous English language learning was widely considered as a worthy model for Chinese college English teaching and learning since there are so many college students, who traditionally learn English in a big class with low learning efficiency level. Teachers can also use project work to promote autonomy. According to Zohrabi (2011) one way of developing learner autonomy is to give them project work. In this way, they can take responsibility for their own learning and approach learning in their own way, suitable to their own abilities, styles, and preferences. (Skehan, 1998, 273 in Zohrabi, 2011).

HOW FOSTERING AUTONOMY CAN DEVELOP COMMUNICATION SKILLS AMONG ENGINEERING STUDENTS OF POLINES
Limitation on classroom time for teaching English has been the major reason of why it is important to foster autonomy among engineering students of Polines. A lot of researches have been done on learner autonomy for more than thirty years (Benson, 2001; Cotterall, 1995; Littlewood, 1996 in Tilfarlioglu & Ciftci, 2011). Researchers on the issue of autonomy have agreed the idea that learner autonomy has been succeeding in promoting motivation to learn and therefore, improve learning effectiveness. This includes improving students communication ability. Nunan (1995) carried out a project in order to find out the effect of building an autonomous learning environment on students learning for twelve weeks. This project covered a language program that was designed using different methods such as co-operative learning, whole class work, pair and group work, learning beyond the classroom and individualized learning. The result of the project was that the students became more communicative than before and started to become responsible for their own learning.

Ragam Jurnal Pengembangan Humaniora Vol. 12 No. 1, April 2012

CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have attempted to describe different communication skills needed by engineering graduates. I have clarified some fundamental issues on autonomy. I have defined the term autonomy, the reason of why autonomy should be promoted, the characteristics and also how teachers can help promoting autonomy. Lastly, I have explained about how fostering autonomy can be beneficial in developing Polines students communication skill. Nowadays, along with the rapid development of technology traditional teaching is no longer effective to be applied to students. Students as learners of English are using technology more and more. Autonomy can help lecturers to cope with this situation through the use of various tools in teaching such as the internet. Promoting autonomy can also be the solution to limited classroom time like what happened in Polines. Lecturers can choose any technique that will be the most appropriate to be applied at his/her classes. By promoting autonomy, lecturers are teaching the students how to control their own learning so that even after the students leave formal education they can still continue their process of language learning.

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