Do Engineers Need Intercultural Competence?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present, from the perspective of intercultural communication, how foreign languages, and especially English, could be taught to students at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, Romania. Starting from what they claim their expectations with respect to how foreign languages would help them in their future jobs, we could devise lessons following several aspects. Among these, the fact that English is a lingua franca, and also the language of intercultural competence at the world level, shows why most students opt to study English. Another aspect has to do with skills that can be taught during foreign language seminars. What is more, awareness of differences among cultures and cultural-specific features could also be included. Last but not least, organizational culture also matters, since in their future jobs, students will need to establish business cooperation and may also need to communicate efficiently with an international team.

1. Introduction

When we speak about learning foreign languages, we need to look at the reality surrounding us at the respective time. There is always a context, which includes certain ways of thinking and behaving that are distinctive to the time we live in. We speak of a certain culture, defined “as patterns of human thought” [1], and also as “The collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another” [2]. Moreover, those members of the same culture “share a language, a historic period, and a geographic location” together with “the standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating, communicating, and acting among those” [3].

Some countries and cultures where the language is spoken may, at some point in history, be very nationalistic and closed to international collaboration. At other point in time, this may all change to the opposite: the countries and cultures can become very open to international collaboration in all domains. If the country is closed, it is compulsory for the visitor to know its very language; if the country is open to international collaboration and traveling, then the visitor can rely on a lingua franca, or a language that is used at an international level to help people of different culture find a common language to communicate. English is nowadays well-known as the lingua franca of the world in all areas, such as studying, working, and traveling for leisure. If English can be regarded as a lingua franca of the world, then it is important to make it clear to students the distinction in culture in areas where English is spoken in the world, such as Great Britain, the USA, Australia, English in Hong Kong, English in Africa, and others. When speaking English as a lingua franca, students will need not to rely on body language that is specific to Great Britain or the USA, for example, and they will need to either keep neutral or adapt to the possible extent to the body language of the country those that they are talking to come from.

Today’s world can be considered to have globalization as the main value and as the main feature, which leads to frequent contact at an international level. The main contribution of globalization is the following: “the intensity of globalization in recent years has brought intercultural competence acquisition studies back to the center stage” [4]. Thus, globalization appears to be the main trigger for the necessity for intercultural competence. The perspective of “Working across cultures [5] should be taken into account in contemporary foreign language teaching. There is an expected difference between the world in the past and the world as we know it today: “With increasing globalization, countries face social, linguistic, religious, and other cultural changes that can lead to misunderstandings in a variety of settings. These changes can have broader implications across the world, leading to changing dynamics in identity, gender, relationships, family, and community” [6]. Thus, first of all, when we are planning to teach a foreign language seminar, we should understand the main features of our contemporary world. In this way, we can make use efficiently of old textbooks, and adapt them to today’s context, or just select some relevant information, exercises, and other activities. With the passage of years, various methods and approaches to teaching foreign languages have emerged, from the grammar-translation method to communicative approaches, and lately teaching methods have focused on the use of technology more than in the past, since various platforms and applications have been made available and developed. We could also just add textbook material created for intercultural communication purposes next to old textbooks material, since some materials can be universal, such as those related to grammar, translation, vocabulary, listening practice, and dialog building. Next to all these we just need to make students aware of today’s world values and makeup, so that they have the necessary skills related to intercultural competence to adapt to the professional world.

In 2001, the research mentioned in resource [7] remarked the following about our contemporary world, and the process of change it was going through: “Revolutionary advances in electronic technologies and globalization are transforming the nature, reach, speed, and loci of human influence”. Moreover, our contemporary world has been described as “an emerging global village” [5]. However, in spite of this, there is a strong respect for preserving the specificities of each and every culture. Intercultural competence takes this into account.

Intercultural competence could be defined, briefly, as “an individual’s ability to function effectively across cultures” [5, 8]. This definition focuses on the capacity of adaptation of an individual to the values and mindsets of members of other cultures, being able to establish communication in a cooperative manner with them. Another definition of intercultural competence has in view “the ability to think and act in interculturally appropriate ways” [9], which continues the ability mentioned previously, adding to it the element of cultural empathy, of understanding other cultures’ beliefs and habits, not just being informed about them. Cooperation is the focus of the following definition of intercultural competence, since it is understood as “an individual’s effectiveness in drawing upon a set of knowledge, skills, and personal attributes in order to work successfully with people from different national cultural backgrounds at home or abroad” [10]. Some elements comprised by intercultural competence are the following: “empathy, flexibility, cross-cultural awareness, and managing stress,” to which we can add “technical skills, foreign language proficiency, and situational factors,” together with “skills to interpret and relate; skills to discover and/or to interact; valuing others’ values, beliefs, and behaviors; and relativizing one’s self” [11].

Why should the foreign language professor take into account intercultural competence when teaching foreign language seminars to engineering students? This question comes up as preparing students for behaving and adapting “competitively in the global marketplace, and staying abreast of the electronic deluge of information and globalized knowledge” is one of the tasks and challenges faced by institutions of higher education in general [11]. The research mentioned in the resource [12] refers to the particular case of the United States, yet the issue is valid for universities all over the world during the start of the twenty-first century.

Reasons, why intercultural competence can be regarded as one of the students’ needs in the context of the foreign language classroom, can be found once we go through the literature review related to this topic. The way that the world is made up today leads to engineers’ needing intercultural competence: “technical expertise is not sufficient for engineers today, given the complex intercultural global contexts in which they are required to work” [13]. Intercultural competence would help them “to become competitive specialists at the labor market” [14]. The need for considering intercultural competence when teaching a lingua franca, such as English or Spanish, can be related to the reality that “learners are more likely to interact with non-native speakers of different nationalities” [15]. English language seminars should have in view for engineers the following: “concepts such as intercultural teams, international meetings, geographical mobility, worldwide negotiations, and globalization,” since these “are associated with the professional profiles of graduates and reveal the need to include intercultural communicative competence in their courses” [15]. To sum up, the need for intercultural competence has to do with the way the world is structured today, and according to the values that belong to our contemporary world, such as globalization, multiculturalism, cultural awareness, and respect for all cultures. Moreover, in the business world, the value that is appreciated nowadays is cooperation among teams belonging to different cultures. The existence of transnational corporations, which operate in different countries, leads to these values to be crucial for a business to succeed. The way staff works will have implications related to communication having in mind the different cultures, functions of the country where certain corporation parts are based. It is assumed that some engineering students will later work in transnational companies, and will need specific communication skills, which they may expect to acquire in the foreign language seminars.

2. Engineering students’ needs regarding foreign language seminars

The findings in this section are based on test one of the groups of students in engineering took at the beginning of the academic year 2021/2022 at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, so that teacher and author of this chapter would understand their needs and expectations from the English as a foreign language seminar. The students were from the first year, from the section Engineering and Management in Constructions, within the Civil, Industrial, and Agricultural Building Faculty. This group of students was divided into two further groups to study the English language: one group studied with the author of the chapter, and the other group with another member of the staff from the Department of Foreign Languages and Communication. Students were divided into these groups mainly according to their own preferences regarding friendships, or according to the way they were divided into two groups for their engineering classes. When the essay was given, during the first class, students from both groups were actually present. This gives all the more a better understanding of the way the students from this section think. Other engineering students at other faculties and sections are divided at the beginning of the academic year through a similar test, consisting of an essay written in English on a given topic, if the majority of the students at that section/ faculty want to study English, while there are too few if any at all students willing to sign up for other foreign languages, such as French, German, or Spanish. What is worth noting here is that these latter three languages are all languages of the European Union as well, together with English. However, the reasons for them choosing English could be due to the fact that they have started to study it as a first language. Some students may have even studied English since kindergarten, and it has likely been the first foreign language studied during their primary school years. It is believed that the earlier learners study a second language, the easier it is for them to express themselves using this language, and up to a point, it could be felt almost like a native language. The English language is also the language of most films that are popular, and of most fictional works, so we could say that the students have shared the same youth culture in a very strong connection with the English language, which makes them feel so attached to it. Games have been or still are part of their interests, as well as social media and all these use the English language. Music hits are also mostly in English. Everything is present in Romania mostly in English, with the exception of cases when other cultures are promoted, for example, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Albanian, Czech, Turkish, etc. Mostly these cultures are promoted as part of various European Union projects, respecting the diversity and uniqueness of cultures. The European Union also tries to raise awareness of the specificity of each and every language. This state of affairs could, in the long run, prove useful for popularizing other foreign languages for these students. However, currently, words from the English language often enter their everyday Romanian vocabulary and are still frequently used by students, as such and not necessarily as neologisms. This can show that they share a similar mindset as a generation, and not studying English can mean for them at some point to feel left out of their peers’ groups.

The majority of the students having a beginner, intermediate, or advanced level of English according to the essay will study English, while the rest of them are sent to the other language groups, following their stated preferences of other languages to study. The topic for the students in Engineering and Management in Construction for the academic year 2021/ 2022 was the following: “How is English as a foreign language going to help me in my future job?” Based on the answers the teacher can understand what the students will be expecting from the seminar for the academic year, as well as how their answers correlate with the topic of intercultural competence, which can be suggested by what they mention in their essays. The level of the entire group can also be assessed through such an essay, allowing the teacher to know which notions to insist upon during class, and, if needed, which students should be given additional materials as a recommendation to reach the level of the majority of their colleagues.

In Table 1, the author of this chapter mentions the significant aspects students have highlighted in their papers, together with the number of papers mentioning each aspect.

No.	Important aspects regarding knowing English in the Engineering profession	No. of papers mentioning the respective aspect	Comments
1	English is the most known language around the world, a lingua franca for travel and work purposes anywhere in the world.	45	Business collaborations in the domain of engineering are frequently mentioned as being made possible due to knowledge of English.; More generally, one student mentions that English represents a means of an international way of interaction. At work level, English is a means to share our ideas at an international level.
	Reasons:
	Learning the language of various countries is difficult and time-consuming. So, using English for communicating with people of other cultures is very convenient.	6	Communication ranges from work-related ones to traveling for personal enjoyment. One student mentioned communication with investors and with workers on site. There is also frequent mention of using English as an advantage for being able to work abroad.
	English is also useful for collaborating at work in Romania, and with people belonging to different cultures. It can also help find partners from abroad and be involved in projects.	10
	English is useful for getting informed individually about jobs, culture, and society-related aspects.	7
	English can help in working as a manager in construction abroad.	1
2	Knowing English is important for work since this knowledge will bring additional income.	6	The additional income has been mentioned both in relation to working in Romania, as well as working abroad, where jobs are paid higher.
	Making the best of your job.	17	Reasons include finding opportunities for training, collaborating on projects, and developing one’s own business in Romania or abroad.
	Helping you find a job.	14	Students believe mainly that employees have on the list the skill of knowing English and that it can also help them to stand out with their CV. Two students also mention their belief that knowing English can help them get a good job in a multinational company in their home country or abroad. One student believes you can barely find a job nowadays without knowledge of English.
	Engineers use computers and programs are most likely in English.	7
3	Learning a foreign language can expand someone’s horizons.	3	This could refer to a better understanding of the mentalities of other cultures.
	Learning about traditions and about how people behave and live, and not just the language.	2
	You will be limited to stay in your country if you do not know English and would like to visit countries whose language you do not speak.	1
4	It is important to keep up with the most spoken languages in the world. English is the second spoken language in the world after Chinese.	9
	Most spoken language in Europe and Romania.	3
5.	For working as an engineer in Romania, your level of English does not need to be very high.	1	This statement contradicts the expectation of the teacher that English would be helpful in the student’s future careers. The student who answered this also mentioned that his level for IELTS was not enough for him to be able to study engineering in Denmark. However, he believes the situation in Romania can be different. The student is probably aiming at working in a company based in Romania and will likely receive help from translators/ interpreters if needed.
6	English is also used in video games and in maintaining friendships related to this hobby.	1	Not related to the future job, but to personal life and to a current interest, which also means maintaining communication with friends from different cultures.
	English is used for movies, songs, and entertainment.	4	Students can connect with peers from around the world sharing the same interests.

Table 1.

Reasons mentioned by students regarding how English as a foreign language could help them in their future professions as engineers.

A number of 46 essays were handed in during the first English class by those students that attended the first seminar. Out of these, 45 essays mentioned knowledge related to the fact that English was an international language, a lingua franca, that is, it was spoken all over the world. The 46th paper that did not mention English as a language of the world belonged to students whose level of English was beginner, so he simply used the opportunity to write about himself and his work and personal interests. However, he did mention traveling, so he may have been aware of the role of English, yet lacked enough language skills to express it. Students are well-aware of how helpful this common language is at an international level regarding situations that are business related, travel-related, or simply related to communication for entertainment purposes with their peers from various cultures related to their current interests in movies, video games, and song lyrics. Students are aware of the role of a lingua franca in their future job opportunities, such as business collaborations with investors or colleagues from other cultures, getting projects for their company, and getting self-development opportunities, both at home and abroad. Some dream of starting their own company, in their home country or abroad, while other dream of working in a multinational company. Some also dream of becoming managers and getting hold of international projects. Some believe that knowing a lingua franca will help them get better salaries in their home country and abroad, and also be regarded highly by colleagues or employees for their fluent skills in English. They seem eager to start collaborations and cooperation at the workplace. They are also aware of other cultures’ different backgrounds, values, and ways of thinking, and they are open to learning more about them. English as a foreign language speaker can be regarded as forming a culture, or even a subculture, in itself.

Dreaming about a career is a usual feature of youths their age. We can see this feature in their essays from the above-mentioned aspects. They are eager to improve their skills, which mainly include communication skills, that we frequently hear about in various organized workshops nowadays in Romania, and abroad. English for these students is a problem-solving language that can help them when in need, and can help them achieve a universally needed skill to communicate with anyone from any culture from all over the world. Indeed, the community of foreign language speakers of English seems to share a universal code of communication, which presents English as a very clear, easy-to-use language to make your point go through to your interlocutors. The language, being shared by other non-native speakers as a second language, does not present a barrier between native and non-native speakers.

We could say that the students see themselves as citizens of the world, willing to adapt to the requirements of their domain’s standards at the world level. Due to this willingness, they could be regarded as having great potential to sign up for training and scholarships for students’ mobility organized and supported by the European Union. In this way, they could improve both communication skills and understanding of how to achieve opportunities in their career by establishing contact with the right persons.

From the essay given as a task to complete in class during the first English language seminar at the beginning of the academic year, the teacher can find out the following: first of all, the students are well-aware of the role of the English language in the world today, both personally and professionally, for communication for various purposes, such as traveling, making friends of the same age and with the same interests all over the world, as well as for professional communication for working together with an international team, being able to be involved in international projects, establishing various partnerships and even being able to start their own business in their home country or abroad. Only one student believes that he could make it eventually even without having a very high level of English proficiency if he did not work abroad as an engineer. However, he is also aware of the extent to which English is helpful in all areas of life. His plan of making it like this is, however, a worst-case scenario. The students who took the test are well-aware of the world situation and of their need to adapt to this world in order to succeed professionally, starting from being, first of all, accepted for a job, and moving on to achieving success and getting high salaries, together with great opportunities for international collaboration in their careers. They are aware of the existence of the possibilities of working in multinational companies, as well as of the existence of transnational corporations since they mention establishing collaborations with foreign investors and businessmen from abroad with their firm from Romania, but which can have headquarters all over the world. These students are well-aware of the possibilities given by knowing English for communication purposes. They are also aware of the existence of differences in mindsets, in thinking and behaving of different cultures. Given all this information about these students, which is visible from their essays, the teacher can realize that no classes should be dedicated to particular to making them aware of the situation of the world nowadays and of the English language since they already have these notions. The teacher does not need to argue in favor of them knowing English and improving their knowledge, since they are already aware of these issues.

What is left for the teacher of English is to select those materials that will answer these students’ needs right away, especially oriented toward their future profession and their future career opportunities. The students have been shaped in their mindset by having been taught according to European Union standards in general school and high school, yet they could benefit from further in-depth knowledge about the relationship between the English language and their main domain of activity. Since most students already have foreign language competencies certificates, such as Cambridge and TOEFL, the main motivator for them to continue the study of the English language would be to further progress from what they already know. If the seminars are only about what they already know, and if they can recognize the textbooks used by teachers in high school, they lose interest.

3. Using English as a foreign language textbooks for teaching intercultural competence

Researchers such as the one mentioned in Ref. [13] have noticed the issue of the need for notions of culture for engineers, that could help them in their profession. According to this research, engineers need to also take into account other skills than those required strictly by their technical knowledge of their jobs. The researcher refers to other notions of culture than those creating stereotypes.

Back in 2006, the issue of a “global engineer” with intercultural competence was raised: “The highly-analytical, technically-focused engineering “nerd” is a person of the past. They seek engineers who are technically adept, culturally aware, and broadly knowledgeable... What they seek is a global engineer” [16]. However, nowadays, as seen from the essays, students are already aware of this issue and prepared for adapting to working in a global world. They only ask for the necessary tools and skills to be given to them in the English language seminars. It is confirmed by research that engineers are required to have intercultural communication skills in order to be hired, as expected by the students who wrote the essays: “engineering companies, professional organizations, and accreditation bodies alike have consistently and increasingly called for graduates with effective communication skills that enable them to collaborate with a diversity of people in a globalized professional environment” [13].

Since most of the students of the group from the academic year 2021/2022 tested by the essay mentioned earlier are, in the majority, either intermediate or advanced level, the teacher can focus on teaching them English for specific purposes, by choosing textbooks for engineers, which are tailored to their domain of activity, with the necessary types of scientific texts, vocabulary, and work-related situations.

One of the textbooks that could be used, at least selectively, is English for the Construction Industry, by Graham and Celia Waterhouse, which was published in 1981 [17]. Even if it is so old, it is useful since it applies grammatical and vocabulary notions to real-life situations, such as communication on-site, regarding various professional contexts, and areas specific to the domain, alongside elements of pragmatic knowledge, such as making suggestions, giving advice, giving instructions, warnings, reasons, opinions, showing certainty/uncertainty and agreement/disagreement, making statements about the future (such as estimation, prediction, possibility, and speculation), asking for information, describing things, finding fault, admitting and denying, putting right, expressing permission, obligation, prohibition, making requests, agreeing/refusing, and persuading. On other occasions, grammatical notions are applied to the specific professional context, such as reported speech, in passing on what other people have said on the construction site. Students can improve their English language for social use in their work context by using the dialogs given as a model and also by exercising in creating similar dialogs with a colleague. The units of this textbook are structured according to the progress of work on a construction site, starting with Unit One: Site Establishment, Setting Out and Substructure, continuing with Unit Two: Superstructure, Unit Three: Roof, Unit Four: Cladding, Glazing, and Scaffolding, and ending with Unit Nine: External Works and Landscaping. Students are presented with elements of language, such as grammar notions, for instance, modal verbs, but applied to a communication context related to the field of work in future for the students. By selecting some of the material from the textbook, and even recommending the rest for individual use and further reference to students, students can get a perspective of how work on a construction site and especially communication can go on in Great Britain. This can be relevant to them since a good part of them would like to work abroad, and even specifically on a construction site, which they would like to lead as construction managers. This textbook can also make the object of discussion during class regarding particularities of culture and the use of language in Great Britain. For example, notions such as specific British politeness could be pointed out from the dialogues. Students could then be encouraged to look for information in other textbooks or even online lessons, regarding the use of language and cultural particularities for construction sites elsewhere in the English-speaking world. This could be the starting point for discussions regarding specific values, ways of thinking, and behaving for different cultures.

Another textbook that could be used for the selection of teaching materials in class and further individual references is Engleza pentru ingineri si tehnicieni, a title in Romanian which could be translated as English for Engineers and Technicians, by Viorica Danila, published in 1967 [18]. While the first textbook mentioned is an international one, and the only language used in it is English, this 1967 textbook contains information in Romanian on the occasions of translation of vocabulary items and also on the occasion when students are given to translate short paragraphs from Romanian into English. Titles of lessons, including grammatical notions are also translated, together with certain sentences. This textbook is addressed clearly solely to a Romanian students audience. The level of English used starts from beginner, with basic sentences, which are applied to the profession of engineer. Numerals, pronouns, and basic questions such as “What is this?,” “What is that?,” and “Who am I?” “I am an engineer” are all clearly applied to this field of activity, and are also accompanied by relevant pictures. Tables for drills are also present, based on situations and vocabulary related to the field of engineering.

Another textbook that could be used in a similar way, to some extent during classes and later on individually for reference by students, is A Course in Basic Scientific English by J. R. Ewer and G. Latone, published in 1970 [19]. This is, like the first textbook mentioned, an international one, and the information is only in English. The book is divided into units related to various grammatical notions, such as simple present active, simple present passive, simple past active and passive, −ing forms, present perfect, present continuous, past perfect, and conditionals, which are present in scientific texts and based on which exercises regarding comprehension, language, and vocabulary use are present. This book could be used in particular for those students that will, later on, be involved in scientific research. They will need to understand the specificities of technical texts in order to write their own directly in the English language for occasions, such as paper presentations and publishing. These notions are also useful for reports for those involved in international projects.

Another, more recent textbook, published in 2008, Take-Off: Technical English for Engineering by David Morgan and Nicholas Regan [20] could also be used in a similar way as the previous textbooks. According to the authors, this textbook “covers general engineering topics, but has an aeronautics focus, so is also particularly suitable for anyone working in the aeronautics industry from co-MRO opera-rives to supervisors, managers, and pilots” [20]. It can be, up to some extent, used for English language seminars for engineers in a broad sense, as engineering students are expected to be interested in traveling, but also in the way that various machine work, so the fact that this textbook is about airplanes in a technical sense may be found attractive by them, at least for a few selected units or sections from units. This textbook “assumes that you have a basic grounding in English grammar and some knowledge of technical terms, but that you need to improve your listening, speaking, reading and writing skills” [20]. The textbook is also accompanied by a CD, so it may be used for listening comprehension exercises for engineering students. At the end of the 2 years of study of English as a foreign language, the students in engineering at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest will sit for a competence test, which is meant to check their level of knowledge of English using 45 questions, with variants of answers to check, based on listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary, and the last section where they write in a single word of their choice in blank spaces. Each unit in this textbook is an engineering subject, such as Design and Innovation, Manufacturing Techniques, Safety and Emergency, Electrical Systems, and others. Topics are also from the field, for example, properties of materials, design rationales, aircraft specifications, electrical maintenance, repair, etc. Skills and language are applied to various situations of communication. For instance, students are asked to give safety information and explanations, discuss and interpret diagrams and schematics, or use language referring to measurement and calculations, and others.

Another example of the more recent textbook that could be used related to the technical domain which will be presented in this chapter is Cambridge English for Engineering, by Mark Ibbotson, published in 2008 [21]. This textbook is based on units focusing on general engineering, with titles, such as Technology in use, Materials technology, Components and assemblies, and others. The skills involved sound are as follows: describing technical functions and applications, explaining how technology works, describing specific materials, categorizing materials, and so on. There are associated grammar issues discussed such as adverbs of degree.

These textbooks, however, focus on engineering culture, and not on raising cultural awareness with respect to taking into consideration the current opening of the world, or the age of globalization related to work. In addition to selecting materials from these textbooks, which have the advantage of making students feel that they are learning something new during the English seminars, and not just repeating the same notions related to grammar and vocabulary from high school, feeling that it is worth attending English class at university, other international, English-only textbooks could be used to select materials from. These textbooks could contain units related to job interviews, small talk in a professional environment, where people from various cultures meet and English is their common language, as well as professional communication textbooks, which focus on various situations of communication at the workplace in various domains of activity.

Certain culture-related notions could be helpful to be given to students in engineering such as the group whose essays have been discussed previously in this chapter. Another faculty within the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest, namely the Faculty of Engineering in Foreign Language, offers in its curricula a course of lectures focused on culture and civilization, called humanity science. The students in engineering at the faculties in the Romanian language do not have such a course, at least not in a compulsory format. It is only available at the request of the students, as an optional course. However, lately, there had been discussions regarding the too much burdened curricula for students at the engineering faculties, and since students already have a high workload for their technical subjects, they have not signed up lately for the course in culture and civilization in optional format. However, certain notions from such courses could be introduced, briefly and occasionally, during the English language seminars.

Hofstede started from the analysis of corporations to develop his theory of cultural dimensions, to see in what ways and according to what criteria mindsets differ across cultures, to the extent that, “if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country—the chances are we will make some very bad decisions” [22]. The dimensions apply not only to corporate cultures but to the mindset of the respective cultures at large, in their personal lives and in the way various institutions and even the state, work.

Hofstede has identified five cultural dimensions: high vs. low power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, high vs. low uncertainty avoidance, and short vs. long-term orientation. Power distance has to do with the way people relate to authority. If the relationship with authority is relaxed, the power distance is low, if the authority has to be obeyed and people have to do as they are told at all times, the power distance is high. If power distance is high, in the family, the father and mother are obeyed, in school pupils have to do as they are told, same for university and the workplace. If power distance is low, at school, for instance, the teachers and students can talk from equal to equal, and students can be creative and negotiate tasks. Individualist cultures focus on the good and opportunities of achievement for the individual, while collectivist cultures focus on the good of the entire group and society. Masculinity refers to the focus of culture on achievement and competition, while femininity focuses on welfare and cooperation. High uncertainty avoidance cultures take strict measures against unexpected situations, while low uncertainty avoidance cultures are more open to the unexpected and are not so anxious about it. As for long- and short-term orientation, the focus is on the following values: “Values associated with long-term orientation are thrift and perseverance; values associated with short-term orientation are respect for tradition, fulfilling social obligations, and protecting one’s ‘face’” [22]. Regarding high scores for high power distance, collectivism, masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation, these can generally be found in Asian cultures. Low scores for these dimensions, short-term orientation, together with individualism, can generally be found in the Western world. Students can be helped by keeping this theory in mind when they start working abroad, collaborating in international projects, and establishing connections with specialists from other cultures. However, they should also keep in mind that sometimes there can be distinctions between organizational culture and the overall country culture and that these tendencies may not be homogeneous at all levels of life and institutions.

Students could also benefit from getting informed about which countries value punctuality, which countries expect people to be in time for a job interview or business meeting, or even a few minutes ahead of the established time, and which countries are very relaxed in this respect and do not even expect you to ever show up on time.

Just like Spain, mentioned in the study in Ref. [23], Romania also needs to prepare engineering students to be able to work abroad, yet at the same time maintain their relationship with the country of origin. This is why cooperation at the international level is preferable to having them migrate. Romania needs engineers in order to build and maintain existing engineering works. With the COVID-19 crisis, and the difficulties encountered to travel abroad, Romanian students are more numerous in the university. This can be encouraging for the future, yet teachers need to do their best in order to keep them experiencing learning suited to their needs. Otherwise, before COVID-19, there were few students remaining in Romania for university studies and few graduates remained in the country to work here as well. Awareness of their own identity at the national level should also be communicated to students during these foreign language classes, so that they do not neglect their own country by focusing on communicating with other cultures via English to the benefit of their domain and career.

The teacher should also keep in mind the advice given by the research paper [24], which mentions that “intercultural communicative-professional competence” should not be the only focus of teaching English to engineering students. At the same time, attention should be given to teaching English having in mind the development of “technical thinking” for these students. We can take this advice to the extent of paying special attention to the way the activities are structured and formulated. Problem-solving activities could be relevant to these students’ mindsets. These activities, in turn, could be achieved through project-based activities. These activities based on project form are suggested as means of “optimal combination of theory and practice,” as well as “to encourage students to resolve their everyday issues themselves” [25]. Therefore, we could treat engineering students as forming a subculture and as having shared values and preferred practices.

During foreign language classes, students can develop cultural awareness next to improving their knowledge of the language. Through various exercises, they can improve their communication skills related to their future profession. Aside from the textbooks and notions of cultural dimensions already mentioned, students can be presented in class with watching videos of interviews or business meetings, and commenting on the way the interview or business meeting goes on, including body language, style of dress, small talk, focus on experience, and cv. Other types of exercises may include allowing students to organize themselves in pairs or groups and collaborate together on various tasks, including presenting some materials related to culture or to engineering, making up dialogs related to professional situations, as well as working together on a translation. This can be regarded as training for communicative and collaboration skills, which are needed for teamwork. Some students may be more suited as leaders, coordinating everything, while some others may be more suitable as team members, doing the work. This can be good training, especially considering students in their first year, the first semester hardly know each other and can practice their collaboration skills with different personalities, as it will later happen with people from different cultures.

4. Conclusion

The question in the title of the chapter has been answered positively, by examining existing research, as well as by looking at the opinions of a group of students at the Technical University of Civil Engineering Bucharest. A few textbooks that have been used to teach English to engineers during English language seminars have also been examined, as to how they could improve the students’ communication skills. Since students have been aware of the role of English as an international language and the way the engineering profession can nowadays be carried out having in mind collaborations from international partners, these notions were not taken in view to be developed upon during the seminars. Instead, notions related to cultural awareness and differences among cultures, both corporative and national, were taken into account.

Since the students in the group mentioned had the majority, at least at an intermediate level of knowledge of English, improving their language came up with applying the language to the engineering domain, as well as communicative situations related to professional situations, and exercises meant to improve their collaboration skills. The communicative approach to teaching English could be efficiently used with students that are in the majority, at least at an intermediate level of English language knowledge.

As some students have mentioned in their essays, or better put, implied, all professions nowadays can benefit from intercultural competence. What is more, intercultural competence could be considered, as they suggested, a must and one of the basic needs for a candidate to be successful at a business interview.

Teaching foreign languages having intercultural competence of students is mind is, after all, a common practice, legitimated at the European Union level, for example, by the Council of Europe’s guidance present in the Common European framework of reference for languages [26]. Therefore, every teacher should keep it into account during classes and adapt the requirements present there to the very needs of the particular group of students that they are teaching. Both students and teachers need to integrate themselves into this culture of teaching and studying foreign languages based on intercultural communication competencies proposed by the European Union, and to make the best of this experience for their future benefit. While the skills of the students are both supervised at national and supranational levels through controls, they should also come up naturally, at least to some extent, since the younger generation may have already had contact with these practices and have been raised according to them. Different generations are educated differently. However, both teachers and students should keep open to learning new notions and skills and use them to their advantage.

The English language has a special status: that of an international language, used for common understanding at the world level, and also that of a language that can be used for comfortable intercultural communication [27].

The author of the chapter has applied the notions of intercultural competence to her own experience with one particular group of students, starting from the very beginning, based on the needs they suggested at the beginning of the academic year.