All Engineering Centre for Languages & Inter-Communication courses

Most students and researchers will experience culture shock in some form when interacting with people from all over the world in Cambridge. While we all speak the same language, the unwritten rules of social norms can make our interactions challenging. If you have recently moved to the UK, you might feel lost or disoriented. If you come from the UK but are not accustomed to interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds, you might also struggle. International diversity is key to Cambridge's success, so embracing culture clash as part of the journey is important.

Join our workshop to:

• Gain a better understanding of the cultural integration process.
• Learn about culture shock and what you can do to navigate it.
• Discuss the positives of diverse cultures as part of your unique experience at Cambridge.

Get ready to overcome culture shock and join us for an interactive online session on November 15th.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

You must have your webcam switched on.

Do you think your future career opportunities are solely determined by luck and being in the right place at the right time? Think again! Learning the art of strategic networking is one of the most crucial factors in shaping your career. It’s never too early (or too late) to start!

Join our workshop to:

• Master the optimal mindset for increasing your 'luck' through relationship building.
• Explore various strategies for growing and maintaining a powerful network.
• Create a personalized plan for elevating your networking game to the next level.

Register now and open the door to a brighter professional future.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

In today's fast-paced world, remote work has become the new norm, presenting unique challenges for engineers. To excel in this environment, you need the right skills. Building psychological safety is especially challenging when working across cultures, making it crucial to learn how to create an inclusive environment where every voice is heard and valued, all while achieving your team's goals.

Join our workshop to:

• Delve into the importance of psychological safety and rapport building.
• Learn techniques to foster trust and connection among team members in a virtual setting.
• Explore the intercultural aspects of remote collaboration, as diverse teams often encounter unique communication and cultural challenges.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

Diversity, in its various dimensions, has been firmly established as a key driver of innovation. However, creating inclusive environments to harness the power of diversity requires preparation. Whether we are aware of it or not, bias towards individuals who are different from us is inherent. Understanding the origins of bias and how to outsmart them is the crucial first step toward fostering a more inclusive space at Cambridge.

Join our workshop to:

• Explore the nature of biases.
• Learn about the origins of stereotypes.
• Discover strategies to outsmart bias.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

In today's competitive landscape for future engineers, technical skills alone won't make you stand out. Recruiters now prioritise 'soft' skills, such as collaboration, communication, time management, and resilience. These skills are challenging to teach and showcase.

Join our workshop to:

• Understand what soft skills are and why they matter during your time at Cambridge University and in your future career.
• Learn how to recognize your unique soft skills and effectively present them to future employers and within the academic context.
• Gain practical guidance on leveraging your strengths and improving areas of development in soft skills.

Unlock the potential of your soft skills to excel both at Cambridge University and in your future engineering career and join us for an interactive online session on 25th October.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

Technical skills are a must-have, but a new skillset is emerging when it comes to finding the right candidate for employment. Those harder to teach and quantify skills, the so called soft or interpersonal skills, have become critical in the recruitment process of global companies and are tested at various stages of job applications.

In this workshop, you will reflect on:

1. What are soft skills and why you need them?
2. How do you know which ones you have?
3. How can you demonstrate them to your future employers?
4. How to develop them?

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

Have you ever struggled with other students' or colleagues' styles of working? Have you wondered why some people seem to be more direct than others, some don’t seem to be interested in socialising, or perhaps others are more relaxed about deadlines? Culture, and not only the national aspect of it, plays a significant role in how we learn to communicate and collaborate. Adjusting to cultural communication norms is more about shared values and expectations than speaking the same language. It requires a specific set of awareness, attitudes, and skills.

Join our workshop to:

• Discuss cultural preferences for working.
• Develop self-awareness of your working preferences.
• Learn strategies for developing the right skills that will help you develop cultural intelligence.

This is not a webinar. This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

To participate you must have your webcam switched on.

This course is designed for learners who have very limited or no previous knowledge of British Sign Language (BSL). The course aims to enable individuals to understand and use BSL effectively for purposes of practical communication with deaf or hard of hearing people, to develop understanding of the BSL sentence syntax and to learn more about a Deaf Culture.

Please note this course is not credit-bearing and so cannot be used as part of a Tripos.

Introductory course to Japanese. This course is for those with no previous knowledge of Japanese. Communicative context, with videos, audio, texts and conversation.

Fun introductory course to Spanish. This course is for those with little or no previous knowledge of Spanish. Communicative context, with videos, audio, texts and conversation.

This course is suitable for students who have studied or picked up Spanish at basic level and who want to revise and progress onto intermediate topics and language and to discover Hispanic culture. The main focus is learning through communication and interaction. We will get together, which offers us many possibilities to watch videos, listen to audio, read texts, write and especially speak in small and large groups. ¡Te esperamos!

This course is designed for non-native speakers of English and covers a variety of spoken language, ranging from the more formal language needed for seminars, discussions and conferences, to the more informal everyday language used in the office or the student house, or in wider social settings, whether online or face-to-face. The course, wherever possible, will take into account the needs and wishes of the participants. This is an opportunity to meet people and to practise your spoken English online in an informal and relaxed environment.

• NB. Please read Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

This online course is designed for non-native English speakers from the Department of Engineering. It will cover a variety of spoken English, ranging from the more formal language needed for seminars, discussions and conferences, to the more informal everyday language used in the office and the student house.

• NB. Please read Attendance section below before signing up for this course.
• Delivery format (online or in person) to be confirmed.

This online course is geared towards non-native speakers who feel that they would benefit from the opportunity to have frequent practice in giving presentations in English. It will consist of a mix of teacher input, individual presentations and regular feedback.

We will meet together for the first class (11.15am on Wednesday 26 January), and thereafter we will meet mainly in small groups of 4-6 students, at 11.15 am on either Wednesday or Thursday mornings.

Depending on exact numbers, each group session will be between 1 hour and 1.5 hours long. Groups and precise times will be decided in the first class.

• NB. Please read ATTENDANCE section below before signing up for this course.
• Delivery format (online or in person) to be confirmed.

This course, which is for non-native speakers, will cover important aspects of English pronunciation for effective academic, professional and social interaction. We will meet together as a group for approximately one hour a week and will schedule 30-minute individual supervisions (after the group sessions between 11.30am-1pm) for personalised input to accompany the course's group input.

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

This workshop addresses common writing errors of Engineers related to structure, style and accuracy. It forms part of CLIC's Lent term series of online masterclasses designed to assist CUED Research students in refining key areas of their writing. Classes include:

• Avoiding common errors in academic writing
• Unpacking journal articles for vocabulary use
• Self-editing skills
• Review of the tenets of academic writing for Engineers
• Writing for blogs

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

Blogs and online articles are becoming ever more important as a shop window to spread word of your work.

They can draw attention to the great things you’re doing, generate income, build partnerships and establish you as a leader in your field.

The statistics say organisations and their staff with blogs produce significantly more potential new opportunities and collaborations than those without.

This 90 minutes, highly interactive workshop teaches you all you need to know to write beautiful and highly beneficial blogs, from the importance of a title, to lovely layouts, and even smartphone photography.

Trainer bio

Simon Hall leads a course in writing, public speaking and storytelling skills at the University of Cambridge, and is a Senior Research Associate at Jesus College, Cambridge.

He also runs his own business communication agency, Creative Warehouse.

Simon has 20 books published, ranging from business and communication to crime fiction.

Previously, he was a broadcaster for 20 years, mostly as a BBC Television, Radio and Online News Correspondent.

This workshop reviews the key characteristics for achieving excellence in Engineering writing. It forms part of CLIC's Lent term series of online masterclasses designed to assist CUED Research students in refining key areas of their writing. Classes include:

• Avoiding common errors in academic writing
• Unpacking journal articles for vocabulary use
• Self-editing skills
• Review of the tenets of academic writing for Engineers
• Writing for blogs

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

This workshop focuses on effective editing strategies for Engineering writing. It forms part of CLIC's Lent term series of online masterclasses designed to assist CUED Research students in refining key areas of their writing. Classes include:

• Avoiding common errors in academic writing
• Unpacking journal articles for vocabulary use
• Self-editing skills
• Review of the tenets of academic writing for Engineers
• Writing for blogs

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

This workshop focuses on how to exploit journal articles to improve quality and word choice in Engineering writing. It forms part of CLIC's Lent term series of online masterclasses designed to assist CUED Research students in refining key areas of their writing. Classes include:

• Avoiding common errors in academic writing
• Unpacking journal articles for vocabulary use
• Self-editing skills
• Review of the tenets of academic writing for Engineers
• Writing for blogs

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

The focus is on structure, logical flow, the effective development of ideas, accuracy and critical analysis. This course is mainly aimed at non-native English speakers but native speakers are welcome to attend.

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

Three face-to-face group workshops are followed by 1 individual supervision per participant. The workshops address common errors related to writing dissertations and publishing papers in terms of style, structure and accuracy, including discussion on the use of AI in academic writing. The individual supervision provides personalised advice for improvement. If you are unable to attend but would like writing support, please email Nicola (nch23@cam.ac.uk) to make alternative arrangements.

• NB. Please read the Attendance section below before signing up for this course.

Writing for Engineers Refining papers for publishing: a course for post-docs

In this course we will work directly with text written by you, the course participants. We will analyse and edit extracts from draft and published papers, always with the aim of honing the language to improve clarity, precision and style. In doing so we will explore questions of grammar and key concepts in academic writing, learning to identify weaker areas and developing expertise in improving them.

The course consists of four workshops followed by one individual supervision.

• NB. Please read ATTENDANCE section below before signing up for this course.

This EDI series supports the University’s EDI strategy concerned with promoting disability awareness and supportive and humanised workplace. The series encourages thinking differently about disabled colleagues or students, to get ‘a feel for the situation’ from their perspective, and to become inspired to help them achieve their professional goals. This series is being delivered by Dr Zrinka Mendas.

Other workshops in this series are:

1. Toward a Better Understanding of Sensory and Learning Impairments (April)
2. Empathy and Disability: Friends or Foes? (May)
3. Embracing Neurodiversity: Strength or Weakness? (June)
4. Sign language as a Useful Communication Tool (July)
5. Advancing Teaching and Learning Practices for disabled staff and students (August)

This is an interactive workshop and you will be expected to contribute to the session.

This course is intended for non-native speaker second and third-year graduate students who wish to improve their Presentation Skills.