15-PNJA-3BA-12
The purpose of the content of the syllabus and course guidelines is to guide teachers and students through the requirements and objectives of the General English course for 1MA. The following components will be addressed:
1). Course objectives
2). Content of the course
3). Classroom procedures
4). Course assessment
5). Examination requirements
1. COURSE OBJECTIVES
Both content and form is of primary importance in developing students speaking skills in ESL. Thus, the development of both content and form should constitute the main goal of teaching/learning practice. The specific course objectives listed below relate to these two areas in the following way:
Content: In order to discuss a topic intelligently students need information: facts, opinions, attitudes. To meet this aim, teachers need to supply students with materials that are rich in information and at an appropriate linguistic level (depth of topic, lexical complexity, range of views discussed, and challenging throughout.) It is also important to encourage students to expand their personal knowledge of the discussed topics on their own. For example, by searching for relevant information on the Internet, watching films and TV series in English or reading. This is more likely if the materials are relevant and interesting to the students and teachers should try and ensure this at all times.
Students should be able to read the texts critically and be able to analyze the content. This means that students can do the following:
distinguish between facts, opinions and attitudes
extract arguments presented in texts and evaluate them
evaluate arguments and spot biased interpretations
formulate their own opinions on matters presented; gather arguments
foresee points of controversy
prepare arguments
develop a line of argumentation in a logical way (avoid contradictions)
Form: The General English Speaking Course for 3BA Studies is a Proficiency level course. Thus, the expectations concerning the level of fluency as well as linguistic (lexical/grammatical/phonetic) accuracy and complexity of structure are high. In order to enable students to meet the final examination requirements the following specifics are:
to teach students a wide range of proficiency level vocabulary
to encourage students to speak and express opinions logically and fluently
to develop communication skills
to teach how to give presentations (public speaking) and how to critically present and analyze a particular topic
to teach control of spoken and pronunciation skills
to encourage self-criticism, self-observation and self-monitoring to spot and self-correct mistakes
to encourage students' discourse management skills
2. CONTENT OF THE COURSE
Materials:
Varied stimuli:
text, audio, video etc.
A variety of sources:
newspapers, magazines, web pages, internet streams, films, documentaries, TV series, sketch shows, podcasts, blogs, vlogs, images, etc.
Relevant, interesting and challenging content:
current debates, controversial issues, intellectually challenging areas, humorous situations etc.
- Nauczyciel: Timothy Williams