2024/2025
English for General Academic Purposes. Advanced Course - 2
Type:
Optional course
Delivered by:
School of Foreign Languages
When:
3, 4 module
Open to:
students of one campus
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
5
Course Syllabus
Abstract
«English for General Academic Purposes. Advanced–2» course caters to the first-year HSE undergraduates at a B2+/ C1 (CEFR) level who aim to enhance their English language command for University study and research as well as intercultural communication competence. In compliance with “Concept of Development of Foreign-Language Communicative Competence of HSE Students” and “Regulations for Interim and Ongoing Assessments of Students at National Research University Higher School of Economics”, the course meets students’ multidisciplinary needs, while developing English-language communicative, integrated, critical and creative thinking competences, and digital literacy. Thus, students are exposed to a variety of rich authentic print and audio texts, organizational structures and tasks employed in mainstream academic environments and practices. Essentially, the course is targeted at building students’ core receptive (reading and listening) and productive (writing and speaking) knowledge and skills belonging to the academic domain at B2+/ C1 (CEFR). This would enable students to extract and process key information for further integrating relevant source materials and presenting argumentative oral (monologue, group discussion, presentation) and written (‘opinion’ and ‘advantages and disadvantages’ essays) texts. To successfully master the programme materials, the course provides for independent work on the online platform SMART LMS. To be admitted to the Course, students must show at least 60 points on the entry test. There are no blocking controls.
Learning Objectives
- The course focuses on enhancing essential analytical and language skills to deal with basic reading, listening, writing, and speaking assignments in English for academic purposes at an advanced level (B2+/ C1 CEFR), which would meet students’ multidisciplinary academic needs. While catering to differing learning styles, the course fosters intercultural communication and digital literacy competences, as well as autonomous learning and team building skills. To achieve these goals, students are expected to • further enhance their knowledge of key academic concepts and phenomena and contemporary trends in scientific expertise as well as develop academic competences; • gain awareness of key issues pertaining to the topics of “Money and commerce”, “Earth science”, “Medieval culture”, and “Materials engineering; • to acquire appropriate reading, writing, listening, speaking strategies and foster academic language faculty for extracting and analyzing necessary information and producing relevant oral and written responses, depending on the target audience/ interlocutor, purpose, topic, and organization requirements; • foster their individual style of learning as well as soft skills while contributing to collaborative problem-solving activities as a team member.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- To form skills of note-taking
- To form understanding of text structure
- To develop understanding of lectures and learning context
- To develop skills in writing a summary
- To develop skills in writing essays (opinion, discussion)
- To form understanding of text structure
- To produce monologues ( descriptive/informative/argumentative/persuasive speech)
- To recognise and follow different types of academic listening input
- To produce monologues (informative/descriptive/reasoning)
- To read authentic academic texts on different disciplines
- To develop skills of using reading techniques of skimming and scanning (predicting, understanding main ideas, understanding details)
- To listen to different lectures for following structured note-taking tasks and completing exercises
- To develop skills of using different listening techniques (listening for gist, listening for details, listening for specific information)
- To produce monologues (informative/argumentative)
- To participate in dialogues/discussions on academic topics
- To develop linguistic competence
- To speak (present, discuss) on different academic issues
- A student distinguishes academic writing style from other forms of writing as well as defines key principles of academic text organization and structures.
- A student uses key academic vocabulary and functional grammar at B2+/ C1 level.
- A student employs a range of text organizations within an extended authentic written or oral text.
- A student utilizes active reading and listening strategies to suit academic text type and reader/ listener purpose or task at B2+/ C1 .
- A student identifies the main idea, text organization, and relevant detailed information in an authentic English print text (research papers, publications on professional, business and educational online resources) and an audio text (lectures, expert talks, presentations, polylogues (B2+/ C1)) as well as interprets texts for inferences, attitudes and styles and deduces meanings from the context, while distinguishing facts from opinions.
- A student produces coherent and cohesive written texts, such as “Discuss both views and express your opinion” essays and “Discuss advantages and disadvantages” essays.
- A student evaluates and develops an argument on the topics of advanced contemporary debate within the scope of the given Programme.
- A student produces an argumentative monologue, delivers presentations as well as engages in problem-solving discussions and group debates, addressing such question types as the “Advantages and disadvantages” discussion, the “For and against” discussion, the “Problems and possible solutions” discussion; the “Cause-and-effect” discussion.
- A student contributes to team projects requiring collaborative writing and redrafting as well as other forms of online collaboration, following and relaying instructions with precision in order to reach the goal.
Course Contents
- Unit 1. Money and Commerce
- Unit 2. Earth Science. Factors influencing the climate of a planet. Impact of geological eras on the planet biodiversity. Space exploration. The Anthropocene controversy. Extended Discourse. Organizational Structures
- Unit 3. Medieval culture. Reading Fluency. Discussing food, art, literature, religion, and architecture. Impact of spice trade on globalization beginning in the late 15th century. How narratives influence cultures, modern poetry, and songwriting.
- Unit 4. Materials engineering. Research Articles. Academic discussions. The scope of polymer applications. Soft robotics.
Assessment Elements
- Final Assessment (FA)Описание: The final test includes one reading test and one written work (an essay). Time limit: 70 minutes. The release of examination papers: during the session. Grading formula: R* 0.4 + W*0.6 = 10.
- Oral Assessment (OA)Oral Assessment includes minimum 1 monologue, 1 Q&A discussion
- Written Assessment (WA)Описание: Written assessment includes: • 1 reading test, • 1 listening test, • 3 vocabulary and grammar tests • 1 essay.
- Independent Work Assessment (IWA)Описание: Written Assessment includes minimum 1 listening test. minimum 1 reading test, minimum 1 essay Описание: Independent work includes activities that students do at home, activities that students do in the classroom and online work. The elements of independent work cannot be retaken. Критерии оценивания: 100-96% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 10; 95-91% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 9; 90-86% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 8; 85-78% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 7; 77-71% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 6; 70-61% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 5; 60-51% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom /online work = 4; 50-36% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 3; 35-21% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 2; 20-1% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 1, 0% of fully completed tasks at home/in the classroom/online work = 0. A fully completed task means that an assigned task meets the deadline and all the requirements.
Interim Assessment
- 2024/2025 4th module0.3 * Final Assessment (FA) + 0.25 * Independent Work Assessment (IWA) + 0.2 * Oral Assessment (OA) + 0.25 * Written Assessment (WA)
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Academic Skills through Cases in American Studies, edited by N. Anthony Brown, 143 p., Talalakina, E. V., Yakusheva, I. V., 2011
- Academic Vocabulary for Social Sciences = Академическая лексика социальных дисциплин [Электронный ресурс] : учебное пособие / Нац. ис-след. ун-т «Высшая школа экономики». — 2-е изд. (эл.) - 978-5-7598-1486-3 - Короткина И. Б. - 2018 - Москва: ВШЭ - https://ibooks.ru/bookshelf/382702 - 382702 - iBOOKS
- Academic writing for graduate students : essential tasks and skills, Swales, J. M., 2012
- Academic writing in a second or foreign language : issues and challenges facing ESL/EFL academic writers in higher education contexts, , 2012
- Academic Writing Skills 3, Student's Book, 140 p., Chin, P., Reid, S., Wray, S., Yamazaki, Y., 2014
- Cambridge Academic English : An integrated skills course for EAP : Advanced, Student's Book, Course consultant M. McCarthy, 176 p., Hewings, M., Thaine, C., 2013
- Oxford grammar for EAP : english grammar and practice for academic purposes with answers, Paterson, K., 2013
- Yucuis, N. (2016). Basics of Academic Writing ; A guide for navigating the perils of mechanics, punctuation, grammar, and style. United States, North America: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsbas&AN=edsbas.29CD07C0