Engineering and design is another huge world encompassing a multitude of working fields. Architects, designers, engineers and similar professionals can work in many different areas. Most of the ASEAN countries are involved in improving their infrastructures to raise the standards in buildings, roads, bridges, transportation, etc. Similarly, technology is always on the move creating bigger and better machines, vehicles, computers, and so on.
The rules and regulations surrounding engineering are many and complex. They can also differ quite considerably from country to country. When a professional gets involved in a new project, he or she will need to check very carefully, and make sure that they are fully familiar with the requirements of both the project and the laws surrounding it, and this will be in the English language.
Let’s consider engineering: ‘the profession of applying scientific principles to design, construction and maintenance’. This can cover very varied fields such as mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, construction. aeronautical, military, systems, and interdisciplinary. Each of these has their own specialty areas which also vary considerably.
When it comes to design we are looking at ‘the creation of a plan or convention for construction of an object or system’. Again this can be found in several general areas, and may have different connotations such as applied arts, architecture, communication, engineering, fashion, games, graphic, information, industrial, instructional, interaction, interiors, landscape architecture, lighting, military, methodology, product, process, service, software, sound, transition, urban, visual, and nowadays web design.
The topics are too wide to do full justice in a short course like this one. Each area of specialty could have a whole course devoted to it. We will deal with three areas, and suggest that those students who have a specialist field not covered here look into researching their own subject in English.
To conclude, in order to develop the English language skills of Thai engineering personnel, the standards for senior engineers, manager and technicians from the English language development center (ELDC) commission on higher education at the Ministry of Education can be found in Resources 1 & 2.