Academic Communication Skills Course

Academic Communication Skills course targets bachelor students in Philology and is aimed at developing critical thinking and academic speaking, listening, reading and writing skills that are crucial for functioning in the English-speaking academic environment in general, and in the English-speaking linguistic and philological community, in particular.

Academic Communication Skills course is supplemental to the education of B.A. students in Philology. It is more skill- than information-oriented, and it is one of the classes where students perform as active learners instead of passive receivers and digesters of information. 

The course offers a content based approach where all four skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing are integrated to foster various speaking opportunities. Since the main focus of the course is on speaking, the listening, reading and writing tasks serve as springboard to either generate or to complement speaking. The emphasis put on variety, language skills and the balance between input and practice throughout the course help students become more confident, autonomous and competent speakers of English.
 

The course learning outcomes are crucial for the students’ further education, as well as for their future professional careers. This course is unique in focusing on teaching students how to express their own thoughts in their professional field in a clear and coherent manner, adhering to all the standards of the English-speaking academic community. It forms part of the students’ overall professional and linguistic training and prepares them for careers with the use of the English language in the following fields: 

1) Research:participation in philological seminars and conferences, writing research papers and reports; presenting projects;

2) Practical field:formal and informal academic communication;

3) Pedagogy:teaching diverse English courses, tutoring in English.

The course aims are:

·                    to consolidate and develop participants' speaking skills as required in an academic English-speaking environment; for example, in tutorials, class discussions and seminars;

·                    to review and give practice in a variety of appropriate techniques and phrases that will help participants take part in discussions more confidently and effectively;

·                    to provide practice in exchanging personal ideas on an interesting variety of discussion topics agreed by the tutor and class participants;

·                     to provide practice in listening to lectures and note-taking skills;

·                     to develop reading and writing skills.

After taking the course students will be able to:

1)                adjust their language to spoken and written discourse;

2)                identify and correctly target the potential audience by choosing appropriate style, vocabulary, and level of formality;

3)                take part in discussions and debates on various topics

4)                identify and implement the basic speaking strategies and standards of English academic monologue speaking, including argumentation structure, data presentation, appropriate transitions and signposts, compositional, rhetoric, stylistic, verbal, and grammatical devices;

5)                identify and implement the basic speaking strategies and standards of English academic dialogue speaking, including expressing and supporting opinions, asking and answering questions, agreeing and disagreeing, giving and taking the floor, turn-taking, interrupting and preventing interruptions giving a response, following up on other speakers’ points; hesitating and expressing degrees of certainty; responding to difficult questions, reacting to an idea, reflecting on an idea;

6)                be an active listener, and use the non-verbal language;

7)                implement the basic listening strategies, including listening between the lines, for specific information, for the main idea, taking notes;

8)                read for the main idea, for specific information, make inferences & interpretations, read for details, read between the lines, skim, scan, identify different opinions, evaluate different viewpoints, make connections between ideas, read extensively to gather data, sort through & prioritize information, expand vocabulary & activate passive vocabulary; understand, interpret and discuss academic texts in English;

9)                produce peer critique; avail themselves of peer critique and native speaker commentary.

The course relies heavily on seminar form and employs a variety of innovative teaching methods that allow to make the process of knowledge and skill acquisition less passive and, therefore, more efficient. Classes consist of individual activities, group activities and pair work to give each participant the opportunity to benefit from speaking time in a controlled environment. The tutor monitors individual performance in terms of vocabulary, accuracy and pronunciation, and provides regular feedback.

The very subject matter of the course, with its focus on British and American conventions of academic communication, different from their Russian counterparts, necessitates innovative methods of instruction.

 The course, unlike most British and American courses in Academic Communication, caters to the professional needs of a specific student population, namely, to Philology bachelors. Thus, besides providing general instruction pertaining to all kinds and genres of academic communication, it particularly focuses on communication skills for philological purposes. Therefore, the course incorporates studying authentic linguistic and philological research papers from top British and American professional journals, listening to lectures on Philology and theory of languages, writing an original research paper on linguistics and philology, and involves presenting a speech on philological topics.

 The course is a new contribution to the HSE curriculum, as there are no comparable courses either in the Linguistics department of the Philological Faculty, or in other faculties and departments. However, its novelty lies not only in its previous absence from the HSE curriculum, but also in its innovativeness as compared to British and American courses on Academic Communication as well as in its unique tailoring to the needs of B.A. students in Philology.