General description

The main aim of this course is to help participants improve their productive (speaking and writing) skills in English when interacting in (either immediate or differed) academic contexts, particularly as regards writing and presenting scientific papers and PhD and/or other research-related documents.

While actively engaging in common (pair and group) activities aimed at enhancing general communicative competence in English, particular attention will be paid to participants’ specific needs concerning language use (i.e. grammar, vocabulary and/or others).

Evaluation

In order to successfully meet the requirements set for the course, the following items are applicable. The corresponding percentage of the overall grade is given in brackets:

• Regular attendance and participation (10%)
• Written and oral assignments (10%)
• Final oral presentation (30%)
• Written project (Scientific paper; 50%)

Contents

1. Academic writing

a. Essay purpose and instructions

• Understand what academic writing is
• Understand the purpose of essays
• Plan your essay guide
• Understand paragraph structure and how to connect paragraphs

b. Essay content and language

• Define key terms and concepts
• Use organizational patterns and visuals
• Understand the language of conclusions

c. Formality, efficiency, modesty and clarity

d. Accuracy

• Improve accuracy
• Choose the correct tense
• Focus on subject-verb agreement
• Use punctuation correctly
• Use articles correctly
• Become aware of common errors

e. Reading comprehension

• Enhance reading comprehension
• Analyse sentence structure
• Analyse noun phrases
• Identify structural and argumentational signposts

f. Authority

• Develop a clear point of view
• State your opinion
• Use ‘I’, ‘we’ and other personal pronouns appropriately
• Evaluate the strength of your own arguments

g. Paraphrasing

• Use a technique to paraphrase accurately
• Use paraphrase to show opinion
• Integrate paraphrases grammatically
• Use paraphrases to summarize

h. The stages in the essay writing process

2. Academic presentations

a. Planning and structuring formal presentations

• Thinking about the brief for your presentation
• Structure a presentation
• Give introductions and conclusions
• Give the main part of the presentation and move from part to part

b. Making and using notes

• Understand some differences between spoken and written English
• Understand why it is important to speak from notes
• Make notes
• Speak from notes
• Understand some practical considerations of speaking from notes

c. Engaging your audience

• Use inclusive language
• Use simple language
• Ask your audience questions
• Learn to emphasize
• Show your opinion

d. How to use visual aids

• Learn about different types of visual aid
• Make visual aids that are useful and effective
• Learn language to refer to visual aids
• Think about practical considerations when preparing visual aids
• Deal with problems with visual aids during your presentation

Language of instruction

English

Academic manager

• Bárbara Cerrato (doctorat@uda.ad)

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