2020/2021
English for General Academic Purposes. Upper-Intermediate Course - 1
Type:
Optional course
Delivered by:
School of Foreign Languages
When:
1, 2 module
Instructors:
Yulia Andrushkina,
Sonia Durneva,
Maria Rodina,
Maria P. Shilankova,
Шапиро Элина Диаматовна
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
56
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The discipline refers to the variable educational tracks offered to students of the curricula for bachelor's and master's degree at choice while mastering the optional course of English in accordance with the Concept of developing English-speaking communicative competence of students of Higher School of Economics — National Research University https://www.hse.ru/docs/381549301.html The program is for the 1st year students. English for Academic Purposes is designed to develop foreign-language communicative and integrated and critical thinking skills that are based on "Regulations for Interim and Ongoing Assessments of Students at National Research University Higher School of Economics and "Concept of development of English-language communicative competence HSE students". Every student has slightly different needs, depending on their chosen discipline, cultural background and other factors. However, there are main skills, tasks, and academic language that are common to most disciplines and are relevant to the needs of most students preparing to study English at university level. The course is focused on core tasks relevant to all students, such as working out the main points of an academic text or lecture (such perspectives as knowledge, motivation, nature, power and growth). There are no blocking controls.
Learning Objectives
- to improve student’s ability to read and understand journal articles, texts, lectures from different perspectives
- to increase student’s comprehension of spoken English
- to strengthen student’s speaking and writing skills in a range of different disciplines
- to systematically and progressively develop students’ academic skills, language, and critical thinking
- to learn topic-based academic vocabulary
- to develop the students’ general capacity to a level that enables them to use English in their professional and academic environment granted that they are provided with the specific notions and vocabulary in the course of their studies
- to learn topic-based academic vocabulary
- to develop the students’ general capacity to a level that enables them to use English in their professional and academic environment granted that they are provided with the specific notions and vocabulary in the course of their studies.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- To form understanding of text structure
- To improve understanding of dialogues and polylogues on both familiar and unfamiliar topics
- To develop skills of using basic listening techniques (predicting, understanding main ideas and details)
- To develop understanding of lectures and learning context
- To form skills of note-taking
- Writing an academic e-mail
- Monologue (informative/descriptive/argumentative/persuasive speech)
- To develop understanding of articles, reports, straightforward and specialised texts concerned with contemporary problems at the threshold/vantage/effective operational proficiency level
- Presentation (informative/descriptive/argumentative/persuasive speech)
- To develop skills of using basic reading techniques skimming and scanning (predicting, understanding main ideas, understanding details)
- Dialogue on general, academic and professional topics. (active listening, questioning, responding to questions, emphasizing, discussion strategies)
- Writing a summary of a text
Course Contents
- Topic 1. KnowledgeLearning and cognitive processes. Understanding and presenting information. Talking about experiences. Writing simple and compound sentences. Present perfect and past simple. Listening: understanding main ideas in a presentation; identifying word class to assist note-taking. Speaking: presenting information about your academic experience and aims. Reading: gaining an overview of an academic text; identifying topics and main ideas. Writing: writing simple and compound sentences. Vocabulary: identifying and using general, academic, and technical vocabulary. Grammar: present perfect and past simple to talk about experiences.
- Topic 2. Organization and motivationCritical thinking, career and success. Perspective and stance in speaking and writing. Definition and explanation in listening and reading. Listening: recognizing signposting language; taking notes. Speaking: identifying, expressing and responding to stance in a discussion. Writing: analysing paragraph structure; writes topic sentences and conclusion sentences. Reading: predicting the purpose of a text; understanding main ideas; recognizing cohesive language; recognizing definitions, explanations, and examples. Vocabulary: evaluative and classifying adjectives. Grammar: pronouns and determiners for cohesion; relative clauses.
- Topic 3. NatureNature and human activity, environmental problems, ecology, urbanization. Description in texts. Descriptive language. Writing a descriptive paragraph. Using adverbials for cohesion. Listening: listening to seminars; recognizing noun phrases in descriptions. Speaking: referring to numerical information; giving a short presentation and providing peer feedback. Reading: identifying the main ideas; identifies supporting evidence. Writing: analysing, plans and uses notes to build a paragraph; using adverbials to add context and support information to a sentence; writing a descriptive paragraph. Vocabulary: identifying adverbial meanings and uses adverbials for cohesion.
- Topic 4. Power and growthGovernment and society, media, advertising, globalization, development. Reporting and summarizing in listening and writing. Using sources in speaking and reading. Listening: identifying different positions and supporting arguments in a lecture. Speaking: forming a stance based on a reading; offering and responding to opinions. Reading: identifying and evaluating sources for an essay; identifying author stance on main ideas. Writing: active note-taking strategies; summarizing words and phrases; writing a summary of a short academic text. Vocabulary: suffixes to recognize and build word families. Grammar: present and past tenses.
Assessment Elements
- Written assessmentSUMMARY ASSESSMENT CRITERIA max 10 points TASK RESPONSE: 3 - All key points are mentioned; 2 - Most key points are mentioned and/or some crucial supporting information is omitted and/or the author’s ideas are partly reflected; 1- Very few key points are mentioned and/or little supporting information is provided and/or very few of the author’s ideas are mentioned, 0 - Only the topic is mentioned and/or no supporting information is provided and/or the author’s ideas are not reflected. VOCABULARY: 2 - The original expressions are paraphrased. A wide range of vocabulary is used. 1-2 lexical mistakes are made; 1 - The original expressions are partly paraphrased and/or an adequate range of vocabulary is used
- Oral assessment
- Independent work assessment
- Final assessmentThe final written exam is conducted in Zoom. Students connect to the videoconference 10 minutes before the exam begins. During the exam, it is prohibited to: communicate (using social media, with people in the room), cheat, give the exam variant to others to have it done, listen to the audio file more than twice, pause the audio, use dictionaries, translators or other sources. During the exam, the student is allowed to: use blank sheets of paper for drafts, open the audios in other web-browsers or download the audio to the computer and open it there. A short-term communication failure during the Exam is considered to be a loss of a network connection for up to 5 minutes. A long-term communication failure during the Exam is the loss of a network connection for more than 5 minutes. It is not possible to complete the Exam in case of a long-term communication failure.
