2023/2024
English for Specific Purposes. Philology - 2
Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'
Type:
Optional course
Delivered by:
School of Foreign Languages
When:
3, 4 module
Open to:
students of one campus
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
5
Contact hours:
80
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The discipline refers to the variable educational tracks offered to students of the BA and MA degree curricula 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 goal of this course is to help Philology programme students master a range of linguistic and text analysis skills. Students will be introduced to the close reading technique as well as basic linguistic concepts and literary theory in English. The course is structured as a propaedeutic step necessary for students taking further courses in English. Students will read and comment upon 16-20th c. texts of various difficulty levels. At the end of the semester students are supposed to present individual and group projects on text analysis.
Learning Objectives
- To introduce students to the basic principles of working with English prose texts of various kinds, including both literary sources and secondary literature.
- To prepare students for further academic activities in English as part of their HSE bachelor’s programme (i.e., Critical Thinking and Academic Writing course and other disciplines in English, MOOCs, etc.) and in a wider English-speaking academic environment.
- To improve critical reading skills, enabling students to analyse different writing strategies.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Students use electronic databases (i.e. JSTOR, ProQuest, Google Scholar, etc.) to shape the research bibliography.
- Students are able to produce their own written commentary to the given literary text, using the basic principles of English academic writing; have a good command of written and spoken English language corresponding to the level B2-C1, i.e., know and use effectively a variety of grammar structures and vocabulary, spell words correctly; identify and use professional vocabulary. Text genres available for the student: Summary; Essay (opinion, discussion); E-mail (business correspondence); CV.
- Students find and analyze academic texts to assess their relevance to their own research; articulate and assess the author’s thesis, purposes, audiences, writing strategies, contexts, bias, and credibility. Students can follow academic lectures and debates. Listening skills: Understanding dialogues and polylogues on both familiar and unfamiliar topics; Understanding lectures; Using basic listening techniques (predicting, understanding main ideas and details); Note-taking.
- Students prepare their own text analysis and orally present its summary in a clear way. Speaking skills: Dialogue on general topics (active listening, questioning, responding to questions, emphasizing); Monologue: descriptive/informative/reasoning.
- Students read English literary texts from different periods (16th-20th c.); use different types of dictionaries and grammars; know the difference between various types of critical editions. The additional results are: 1) Understanding specialised complex longer texts/articles and reports concerned with contemporary problems (CEFR); 2) Understanding text structure; 3) Using basic reading techniques, skimming & scanning (predicting, understanding main ideas, understanding details).
Course Contents
- An Introduction to Critical Reading of English Literature (16th-20th c.)
- Basic Concepts of Text Analysis
- Talking about Different Opinions: Reading Secondary Literature
- Finding Academic Texts: An Introduction to Research Databases
- Presenting Ideas: Final Projects
Assessment Elements
- Final assessmentFor the final project students choose one English literary text and prepare an analysis, using any academic point of view. The analysis should be presented at one of the classes in the form of oral presentation that should include an introduction, a research question and hypothesis, arguments and examples from the text, conclusions, and research bibliography (not less than 3-5 positions). Moreover, the final test is held in class within 10 days before the exam period online on Zoom or MS Teams platforms. The exam consists of two parts: Reading and Writing 40% and 60% respectively in the total mark for the exam. The actual scores for each part of the exam are turned into percentages and then the total percentage is calculated. It is tuned into a final mark out of 10 points.
- Written AsssesmentStudents are expected to complete several written assignments within the course: an essay, 3/4 tests with lexical and grammatical exercises, as well as several open questions that cover the content of the course. Other tasks for developing and assessing writing performance include but are not limited to: • brainstorming activities such as free writing, storyboarding, mind-mapping, note taking, group sketching, word banking, S.W.O.T. analysis etc.; • formulate a hypothesis; negative / positive, descriptive / problem explaining / supporting / arguing, opening / concluding statement etc.; • write and present a plan, summary, abstract, overview, mind map of the sources / ideas / materials / findings etc.; • write a paragraph, summary, description, response, etc.; • design a guide / blog (magazine) article etc.; • write a press-release to present your own research / educational / professional History project.
- Oral assessmentDuring the 3d module each student should make one presentation on any academic topic connected to the book discussed in the seminar. During the 4th module students are doing short presentations about the book they are analysing for the final project.
- Independent work assessmentGlossaries, translations, short grammar tasks
