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- Lean-Green manufacturing: collaborative content and language integrated learning in higher education and engineering coursesPublication . Gaspar, Marcelo; Régio, Mónica; Morgado, MargaridaLean and Green manufacturing processes aim at achieving lower material and labour costs, while reducing impacts on the environment, and promoting sustainability as a whole. This paper reports on a pilot experiment with higher education and engineering students, exploring the full potential of a collaborative approach on courses integrating the Portuguese Polytechnic of Castelo Branco engineering studies curricula, while simultaneously improving their proÞ ciency in English. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become a key area of curricular innovation since it is known for improving both language and content teacher and student motivation. In this context, instructional design for CLIL entailed tandem work of content (engineering) and language (English) teacher to design learning sequences and strategies. This allowed students to improve not only their language skills in English but also their knowledge in the speciÞ c engineering domain content on green and lean manufacturing processes.
- Learning a /through a foreign language in higher education: employers’ and students’ perceptionsPublication . Morgado, Margarida; Gómez Garcia, Luis Vicente; Gaspar, MarceloIntroduction: Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are allegedly preparing students for a globalized working area where people will need to be ready to communicate effectively in one or more foreign languages in international working environments, which puts a lot of pressure on how foreign languages (FL) are learned in Higher Education (HE). Methods: This article explores how a FL or learning through a FL could be approached in HEI, focusing mainly on what employers claim in terms of skills of recent graduates or on-the-job workers. Case studies are used, combining interviews to employers and questionnaires to HE students to find out their perceptions on FL learning requirements for greater employability. Conclusions: A series of recommendations are made for HEI on how to promote students’ employability skills; on the best practices for the development of intercultural communicative competence and FL skills to communicate effectively in international or digitally-mediated working environments; as well as on how to prepare the teaching staff for emerging trends that involve using a FL as medium of instruction or CLIL, a content and language integrated approach. These testify to the importance of learning a FL or through a FL, as well as the need to combine transversal skills development in connection to FL learning.