English as a second language (ESL) for engineering graduate students: a cooperative project in technical communication

It is argued that those best qualified to evaluate international students´ proficiency and offer instruction are specialists in ESL (English as a second language), technical communication, and teaching/learning and not the graduate engineering faculty. Engineering schools can involve these specialists by combining two approaches: (1) taking advantage of services offered by ESL and teaching programs already established in the university, and (2) hiring the specialists as instructors in the engineering school. Vanderbilt University´s cooperative project in technical communication, which uses both approaches, is described. The two project components-one for new teaching assistants, the other for researchers-call on expertise from already established university programs: the Center for Teaching and the Center for Orientation Programs in English (COPE). In addition, a technical writing specialist in the School of Engineering teaches the writing component for researchers. Each project component is designed to accomplish one different and one shared goal