PdF:ZeD_AJC1 English for Doctoral St - C1 - Course Information

ZeD_AJC1 English Language for Doctoral Studies - Level C1

Extent and Intensity

0/0/0. 10 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).

Teacher(s)

Mgr. Veronika Dvořáčková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Gabriela Hublová, Ph.D. (assistant)

Guaranteed by

Mgr. Veronika Dvořáčková, Ph.D.
Department of Geography – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Kateřina Brabcová
Supplier department: Department of Geography – Faculty of Education

Prerequisites

Students enrolling in the course are expected to have reached the minimum CEFR level of B2.
The course is intended for doctoral students at the Faculty of Education (with the exception of students of the Didactics of a Foreign Language study programme). The course develops all four language skills (speaking, writing, listening comprehension, reading comprehension) while putting a special emphasis on genre-based academic writing and speaking. In developing writing skills, attention is paid to abstracts and essays including their parts and functions of these parts as well as to theoretical principles on which the composition of these genres is based. In terms of developing speaking, instruction focuses on academic discussion and presentation of the dissertation research project and a conference poster. The course design incorporates principles of collaborative learning, which are put into action in providing constructive feedback and in tasks involving critical thinking. Finally, students will acquire vocabulary related to tertiary education and concepts needed for metadiscussion of the above-mentioned academic skills and principles.

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

• Didactics of Geography (programme PdF, D-SPE4) (2)

Course objectives

1 Students will get a systematic overview of the advanced features of the English academic language.
2 Students will acquire the most frequent discipline non-specific lexico-grammatical units in order to achieve a linguistically and logically fluent production as well as the effective perception in formal academic discourse.
3 Students will acquire conventions of the most frequent academic genres (both spoken and written) including their structure, phases and functions of these phases.
4 Students will acquire the principles of peer review.
5 Students will acquire terminology necessary for metadiscussion of academic topics, principles and conventions including cognition and metacognition.

Syllabus

• Topic 1 – Tertiary education, learning styles and strategies (university admission procedure, graduation, e-learning, reading and writing strategies).
• Topic 2 – Academic language 1 – basic characteristics (lexical density, noun and prepositional phrase, key nouns and adjectives, homonyms in academic and general English, types of text cohesion).
• Topic 3 – Introduction to academic lecture – main and supporting points of lecture, signposting; listening comprehension. Structure of academic text – academic text typology according to readership, communication purpose and authorial stance; reading comprehension.
• Topic 4 – Introduction to academic essay; writing. Lexico-grammatical items to ensure text cohesion and coherence, types and examples of referential expression. Assessment of essay introduction and its effect on readership. Reflecting as part of writing process.
• Topic 5 – Group discussion in seminar discussion, main and supportive points of argumentation, justification of the argumentation type chosen, argumentation types; speaking. Argumentative texts – identification of authorial stance, stages of argumentation, main and supporting point; reading comprehension.
• Topic 6 – Academic language 2 – key collocations (nouns, adjective, adverbs, verbs), key quantifying expressions, phrasal verbs in academic English.
• Topic 7 – Introduction to discursive essay – citation, paraphrasing. Academic lecture – critical listening; listening comprehension.
• Topic 8 – Reading of academic journal texts with an emphasis on abstract – identification and definition of the genre of text in academic journal, text stages and their functions, academic language to express and evaluate academic objectives. Writing of abstract.
• Topic 9 – Poster presentation – genre identification, assessment of poster design in terms of its communication purpose and fuction, interaction with interlocutors, here professional audience; speaking. Lexico-grammatical units to achieve effective spoken poster presentation.
• Topic 10 – Conclusion of academic essay – recapitulation, summarization, main finding, research/text limitations; writing. Indirect expressions – hedging.
• Topic 11 – Powerpoint presentation, individual and group presentation, visual data in presentation, title and full abstract for spoken presentation; speaking, writing. Reflection of conference paper drafting process.
• Topic 12 – Citation norms, types of referencing, plagiarism; writing.
• Topic 13 – Academic language 3 – collocations, key expressions used in statistics, graphs and diagrams, cause and effect, analysis of results.

Literature

required literature
• Náhradní obsah: Study material posted in the course folder in the MU Information System.

recommended literature
• ŠTĚPÁNEK, Libor, Janice DE HAAFF, Alena HRADILOVÁ a David SCHÜLLER. Academic English – Akademická angličtina: Průvodce anglickým jazykem pro studenty, akademiky a vědce. Praha: Grada, 2011. 224 s. ISBN 978-80-247-3577-1.
• MCCARTHY, Michael a Felicity O'DELL. Academic vocabulary in use. First published. 176 stran. ISBN 9780521689397.
• Náhradní obsah: Certificate in Advanced English. Cambridge University Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0-521-71443-3
• Náhradní obsah: 3. Cambridge IELTS with answers. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-54462-7.

not specified
• DE CHAZAL, Edward a Julie MOORE. Oxford EAP :a course in English for academic purposes : advanced/C1. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 239 s. ISBN 9780194001793.
• Náhradní obsah: 1. Cullen, Pauline. Vocabulary for IELTS. Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-70975-0
• DE CHAZAL, Edward a Sam MCCARTER. Oxford EAP :a course in English for academic purposes ; upper-intermediate/B2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. 152 s. ISBN 9780194001786.
• www.macmillandictionary.com

Teaching methods

Oral presentation, pair work, role plays, discussion, frontal as well as student-centred instruction.

Assessment methods

Course completion requirements:

The written exam will have ONE of the following forms:
Student will submit an extended abstract of a specialist text fulfilling the genre conventions (original without citations) using between 500 and 800 words, students will be provided with discipline-specific guidelines. The structure is as follows: 1 topic, 2 status quo, identification of the gap in the status quo, 3 methodology, 4 results, 5 discussion, 6 references.
Student will submit theses of their dissertation work or a dissertation work proposal depending on the stage of their studies. The text will have between 1000―1500 words and will follow discipline-specific conventions provided by instructor. The theses may have the following structure: 1 topic, scope of the dissertation work, basic terminology, 2 theoretical bases, 3 the status quo including an overview of the most important references, 4 methodology, 5 preliminary results, 6 expected or final result, 7 discussion, 8 references.
Student will submit an essay written in a specialized course for doctoral students.
Student will submit a text which he has published or is expected to publish in an academic journal.
Student will submit a C1 CEFR level specialist (not general) English certificate (Legal English and Business English certificates at C1 CEFR level applicable here).
Student will submit a confirmation proving that he has a Master Degree in the English language and literature or English Translation Studies.
Student will submit a confirmation proving that he attended a Master Degree programme conducted in English.

The oral exam will have ONE of the following forms:
Presentation in front of a specialist audience (e.g. doctoral students attending the same study programme, supervisors, consultants, etc.) followed by an interview with an examiner where the dissertation thesis supervisor may be present or asked for relevant questions prior to the exam) – cca 30 minutes.
Interview with an examiner directed towards a specialist topic – cca 30 minutes.
Student will submit a certificate/confirmation that he has presented a paper in English at an international conference. Student will submit a C1 CEFR level specialist (Legal English and Business English certificates at C1 CEFR level applicable here) or general English certificate.

Language of instruction

Czech

Further Comments

Study Materials
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
The course is taught annually.

• Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2016, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/ped/autumn2016/ZeD_AJC1