The purpose of this study is to present the model of engineering education and the idea of foreign language teaching. According to the actual situation of foreign language teaching in higher engineering education, in the present information technology advancing with each passing day, the growing international communication and cooperation, integration with the global economy, the paper elaborates how to carry out foreign language teaching in higher engineering education, from the change of course content, reform of teaching method, reinforcement of students' self-directed learning motivate mechanism, and so on. Renew the idea of teaching, reform teaching ways and methods, and the new teaching idea of combining foreign language teaching with professional skills of practice are also proposed.