Course-PM

FSP055 English lp1 HT19 (7.5 hp - note this is a pre-university course)

Course is offered by the department of Communication and Learning in Science

Contact details

• Course manager and teacher: Carina Sjöberg-Hawke carsjobe@chalmers.se 
• Course examiner: Andreas Eriksson andreas.eriksson@chalmers.se 

Course purpose

To prepare students who need to use English in their studies at Chalmers. The course is intended mainly for basic to intermediate students who need to strengthen their ability to speak, write and understand English.

This course aims to guide you in being able to select, structure and present material from your field of study to a non-specialist audience in English in a clear and effective manner. You will be able to more comfortably understand, summarise and reformulate the main content of oral presentations and lectures in speech and writing. By the end of the course, you should be able to prepare and write short coherent descriptions of technical content based on your field of specialization or your peers'. With these means, it is hoped that you will become accustomed to applying a more process-oriented approach when working with texts and oral presentations.

Schedule

TimeEdit

It is strongly recommended that you plan ahead using the Detailed Schedule.

Course literature

Recommended reading and exercises to be provided throughout the course.

Course design

You will practice your oral proficiency through some discussion, mini-presentations and exercises. There is a strong focus on pronunciation, stress and intonation. You will present individually and be asked to summarise the content of presentations given by your peers in both speech and writing. Here, phraseology and the structuring of oral presentations is introduced. Written proficiency is also part of the course and will be practiced through summary writing. Some analysis of English grammar and vocabulary will be included.

The course involves three in-class meetings, a tutorial and a number of online activities. The main activities revolve around six obligatory assignments. The idea of each assignment is that they should be supportive of the other assignments and each one should therefore be completed before attempting the next one.

Changes made since the last occasion

Assignments have been renamed in order to fit with the transfer to and set up of the course in Canvas.

Learning objectives and syllabus

Learning objectives:

• express himself/herself clearly in both speech and writing in prepared situations. The focus is thus on strengthening the student's communicative competence.
• select, structure and present material from his/her field of study to a non-specialist audience in a clear and effective manner.
• understand, summarise and reformulate the main content of oral presentations and lectures in speech and writing
• prepare and write short texts relating to a technical field
• apply a process-oriented approach when working with texts and oral presentations

Link to the syllabus on The Study Portal: Study plan

Examination form

Assessment

In order to pass the course, all of the following tasks have to be completed and accepted. Assignments are to be handed in via the course learning platform Canvas. Note that some assignments are divided into parts A and B. You will be notified through Canvas when an assignment is completed. Assessment of assignments is based on the following criteria: General Oral Presentation Assessment Criteria.pdf and General Writing Assessment Criteria.pdf

Deadlines: it is important that you keep to the deadlines due to the process-oriented nature of the tasks. Any issues with meeting the deadlines, please speak to or email the teacher. 

Revisions: should assignment requirements not be met, revisions will be requested. See individual assignments for revision details.

Participation

Active participation in the course and attendance in the meetings are expected. Please speak to or email the teachers if you have schedule and/or meeting deadline issues.