Academic English Workshop

This workshop is an opportunity to practice using English in contexts related to your studies. You will practice listening to lectures and making notes, making presentations, reading academic texts and writing formal English. This means that the course content will be presented using an integrated skills development methodology which highlights four main areas of language: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The focus of academic English workshop will be on formal and academic English rather than on general English.

The teaching methodology is based on a communicative approach, with participants doing pair work, group tasks and role-play activities. Within a supportive learning environment, participants are encouraged to ask and respond to questions, and participate in discussions.

Course Outcomes

It is expected that at the end of the course the participants :

§  Improve the confidence and skills to actively speak out and participate in spoken academic English

§  Improve the skills required to present ideas in a variety of written styles in their field of work

§  improve the skills to produce an effective presentation

Teaching and learning activities:

• Interactive teaching
• Cooperative learning
• Pair/group discussion

Assessment Methods:( formative assessment)

• Assessing participants' lectures
• Assessing participants  writings
• Portfolios assessment (self/peer/teacher assessment)

Portfolio:

Overview

Your portfolio represents the culmination of your work in this course. It is not simply a collection of work you have done for the course, nor is it a showcase for your best work; rather, it is a synthesis of what you've done and what you've learned about academic English. Think of it as your effort to demonstrate what you've learned and done in the course.

What is portfolio assessment?

A file containing the history of your personal experience and development at the course.

A process of reflecting on your learning and development at the course

What is its purpose?

–        Help you reflect on your learning experience, both what you have learned and how you have learned it

–        Make you more aware of how you  learn

–        Engage you in an active thinking process, about both formal study and other experiences

What is the portfolio for?

To enable you:

•         to reflect on your learning

•         to assemble evidence in support of your reflections

•         to write about your  learning process

•         to plan your future learning and development

What sort of evidence? Some examples:

• text of a group presentation;
• a note of a meeting at which you practised group work skills,
• an exercise in class with your own annotations,
• an assignment you wrote
• a list of articles or books on a subject you explored

A Learning Diary

•         What surprised or disturbed you?

•         What was difficult and needs further work?

•         What was a new idea?

•         Did a different approach help make something clearer?

•         Do you want to add to an earlier entry?

How will it be assessed?  Can you show you are:

• thinking about what and how you are learning
• aware of how your understanding has changed, and previous assumptions have been challenged
• trying to make sense of it, in relation to previous knowledge, skills  and understanding.
• engaging seriously with difficult subjects
• considering how it will affect you as a person
• discussing these issues with colleagues and tutor

Contents

For the most part, what you choose to include in this portfolio will be up to you. In general, you should select materials that will reflect what you've done in the course and the progress you believe you've made. However, you will need to include specific kinds of documents,  that will serve as evidence that you have developed specific competencies and/or completed specific tasks. In particular, you will need to have five sections in your portfolio.

Here, in short, is what you will need to include in your portfolio:

1. Evidence of development or progress or insight into your own presentation and writing. Some possible documents:

• specific examples of what you consider to be improvements in your presentation and writing
• a discussion of your own writing and presentation in the form of a self-analysis
• evaluations of writing and presentations of your classmates.

2. Evidence that you have learned to respond carefully and thoughtfully to your classmates' writing and presentation. Some possible documents:

• copies of some of the critiques you have written of your classmates' writing and presentation
• a discussion of how you responded to your classmates' drafts
• examples of revisions made by your classmates as a result of your comments.

3. Evidence that you have developed some understanding of and competency with the uses of techniques in your writing , reading and speaking. Some possible documents:

• an explanation of how you have used various techniques in your writing and presentation for this class
• examples of how you used email for your work in this course

classmates and teachers'  reflection on your lecture presentation.