Syllabus
Course content In class
1. Presentation skills Oral presentations skills; practised in class with accompanying Powerpoint slides Focus on academic subjects and style of presentation Follow-up group discussion Verbal and written feedback, final self-assessment based on video recording of presentation
2. English for academic purposes: Focus on formal vs. informal vocabulary and style Self-study
3. Grammar structures (review and practical exercises in Moodle): Indirect questions Reported speech Conditionals Perfect tenses Expressing the future Subjunctive
4. Lexical development: Compulsory vocabulary list for self-study (found in Moodle).
Annotation
English Language Seminar (I, II)
This two-term seminar is designed as a practical language foundation course compulsory for all first-year students on the Anglistika-Amerikanistika bachelor's programme. Its primary aim is to better equip the student for academic studies in the field by:
– further activating and developing productive skills in both speaking and writing for application in the academic environment
– maximizing proficiency in the receptive skills of reading and listening for application in the academic environment
– consolidating and extending advanced language-structural (grammatical, syntactical) skills
– expanding lexis particularly – although not only – in preparation for study in the specialist field (linguistic terminology etc) and for academic writing in general
– increasing lexical awareness and scope particularly with regard to collocation, synonymity, phraseology and idiomaticity
– working on finer details of pronunciation as and when necessary
– paying attention to English-language style and appropriacy in the academic environment.