Improving Engineering Students^|^rsquo; English Proficiency with International Exchange Activities and Extensive Reading

Abstract

Hoping to improve the students’ English proficiency, colleges of technology have been developing international exchange (IE) activities. However, the outcomes were still limited to motivating the students to learn English because the duration of IE was too short, the participants were too few, and regular English lessons were too different from IE. Some colleges of technology have been conducting extensive reading (ER) programs and showed the effectiveness of ER improving the students’ English proficiency. But they also showed that ER programs needed long duration, and motivating the students through it was not always easy. This article shows that IE and ER, if combined, can improve engineering students’ English proficiency more effectively. First it examines the relation of students’ English proficiency and their learning hours in both IE and ER. Then it shows learning-hour dependent tendencies of students’ TOEIC scores and self-evaluation of the students in an ER program. It proposes a model educational program that combines ER and IE seamlessly at the last part.