A Fast Track to Professional English (3 cr)

Objectives (course unit)

Students
-can communicate within multi-professional work communities in their own special field
-understand and can make use of texts related to their own professional field
-can develop language skills of their own professional field utilizing a variety of learning tools
-understand the significance of communication as part of professional skills
-can instruct various clients/patients/colleagues in field-specific situations

Content (course unit)

Key terminology and communication of one’s own professional field
Field-specific texts
Different registers

Prerequisites (course unit)

Upper secondary school courses (A-level) or an equivalent level (health care and other fields)
Working English for Engineers or equivalent skills (engineering)

Location and time

15.9.-17.10.2021
Independent and collaborative studying on tuniMoodle platform. Weekly instructions from the teacher. Individual feedback on certain assignments.

Exam schedules

Instead of an exam, various written and oral assignments are supposed to be worked on and submitted.
Presentation of project work on 15th October 2021
Re-take by 3rd November 2021

Assessment methods and criteria

Instead of an exam, various written and oral assignments are supposed to be worked on and submitted.

Assessment:
Video assignment Pass (Compulsory)
Sustainable development essay 1-5 (25%)
Video chat with a student colleague & reporting it 1-5 (25%)
Oral presentation (video) 1-5 (40%)
Other activities (collaborative, informal) (10%)
Learning diary Pass (Compulsory)

Assessment scale

0-5

Teaching methods

For whom?
For an engineering / a health care student who wants to study at an accelerated pace to complete his/her studies and who has the ability to study English of one’s special field both independently and with students from different professional fields.

Prerequisites:
Upper secondary school courses (A-level) or an equivalent level (health care students)
Working English for Engineers* or equivalent skills (engineering students)

Learning materials

Material on Moodle

Content scheduling

The course lasts five weeks.

International connections

Also for exchange students

Assessment criteria - fail (0) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

The student
-fails to meet the specified criteria in one or more of the compulsory assignments.
-fails to meet the given deadlines.

Assessment criteria - satisfactory (1-2) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

The student
-can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help formulate what is being said.
-can write memos, reports, summaries and other texts related to his/her field such as manuals.
-can understand texts in his/her field with some help e.g. dictionaries.
-can follow standard speech in everyday conversation provided he/she can ask for repetition.
-pronounces mostly comprehensibly.
-can express him/herself with somewhat clarity.
-uses basic grammatical structures
-has sufficient vocabulary to express him/herself so that essential message is understandable.
-can find and understand relevant information in texts on familiar matters.

Assessment criteria - good (3-4) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

The student
-can give a presentation fairly effectively and fluently.
-can write memos, reports, summaries and other texts connected to his field such as instructions and manuals.
-can understand texts on subjects related to his/her field.
-can discuss and interact with some confidence.
-can understand interlocutors who use different accents if the topic is familiar.
-pronunciation is fairly intelligible even if a foreign accent is somewhat evident and occasional mispronunciations occur.
-can express him/herself fairly clearly and precisely in writing.
-shows a relatively high degree of grammatical control. If he/she makes mistakes he/she can correct him/herself if mistakes have led to misunderstanding.
-can understand the main ideas of complex texts on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization.

Assessment criteria - excellent (5) (Not in use, Look at the Assessment criteria above)

The student
-can give an effective and fluent presentation.
-can write clear, well-structured memos, reports, summaries as well as other texts on subjects related to his/her field such as instructions and manuals.
-can understand in detail texts related to his/her own area of specialty.
-can discuss fluently and spontaneously.
-can understand relatively effortlessly people who use different accents.
-has acquired a clear, natural pronunciation and intonation.
-can express him/herself with clarity and precision in writing.
-has a good grammatical control and accuracy. Occasional slips or non-systematic errors and minor flaws in sentence structure may still occur.
-has a good command of a broad lexical repertoire.
-can understand in detail a wide range of lengthy, complex texts.