Many engineering students lack of the capability of overall planning and collaboration to solve practical problems. The concept of CDIO focuses on cultivating students' engineering ability. Engineering ability includes not only academic knowledge, but lifelong learning competencies, communication and control on whole project.We adopt the concept of CDIO and apply it in our college English teaching. All the students are divided into several groups, each group has one project to accomplish. Through the project planning and implementation, students actively learn English. Practice proves the teaching model not only promotes students in English learning, but helps students to develop logical thinking, teamwork and innovation.