Foregrounding the productive skills, "English: Speaking and Writing" is a suite of three courses that enables learners from different academic backgrounds to gain accuracy, range, confidence and fluency in written and spoken English, primarily for study purposes.
Drawing on a broad spectrum of academically oriented source material, "Speaking and Writing II" aims to engage your interest in a variety of contexts which will allow you to hone your productive skills. During the course you will work in pairs and groups, discussing source material, analysing and practising language, thereby enabling you to produce a succession of short texts. This course builds on the previous course by extending the range and complexity of language functions addressed, including among others: identifying textual features; expressing points of view; describing change; situating and outlining a process; comparing and contrasting; exploring cause and effect relationships; describing and evaluating data; defining and classifying; making a presentation.
The course gives you the opportunity to:
- compose a series of essays and other task-focussed written assignments which allow you to bring general, as well as your own research perspectives into play;
- participate in pair and group discussions which encourage you to reflect on your own and others' research experience;
- practise your pronunciation;
- improve your language control;
- learn and use academic vocabulary;
- exercise range in your grammatical and lexical choices;
- develop aspects of coherence and cohesion: paragraphing, punctuation, linking;
- prepare and give a short presentation to your peers.
While special attention is paid to the lexical features and functions of more formal academic discourse, this course can also make a good parallel option for those working towards English language certificates. Prospective participants are advised to contact the Language Center for consultation about suitable intensive courses during the semester break that will prepare them for this course.