UCL - Seminar of professional integration: Dutch

[NEER2600]

[30h] 3 credits

Teacher(s): Isabelle Demeulenaere(coord.), Mariken Smit

Language: NL

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Content and teaching methods
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

Reading comprehension: B2+ level of the CEFR
- Students can extract information, ideas and opinions from highly specialised sources linked to their field of study .
- Students can understand highly specialised articles outside of their field of study provided they can occasionally use a dictionary to check their understanding.

Listening comprehension: B2+ level of the CEFR
- Students can follow the main points of a conference, a discourse, a report and other types of educational/professional presentations, which are complex in form and content.
- In a conversation, students can understand in detail what is said in standard dialect, even in a noisy environment.

Speaking skills : B2 level of the CEFR
- Students can methodically develop a presentation or a description emphasizing the important points and relevant details.
- Students can spontaneously diverge from a prepared text to follow interesting points raised by the audience, and show great ease and spoken skills in doing so.
- Students can take part in a conversation of a certain length on most general topics and really participate in it, even in a noisy environment.

Writing skills : B1+ level of the CEFR
- Students can summarise information and arguments coming from diverse sources.
- Students can write formal letters and know the formulas which are most appropriate to the different forms of professional correspondence.

Code :
Expansion of general vocabulary (4000 basic words) and specific professional vocabulary.
Reinforcement of simple and complex specific grammatical structures of Dutch. As far as speaking skills are concerned, the course focuses more on communicative skills than on correction.

Culture:
For all the skills aforementioned: introduction to Flemish and Dutch culture. The capacity to appreciate the values transmitted by this culture is developed through different fields (social, political, economical).

Main themes

The course is structured around different themes related primarily to the professional world in which the student is meant to function in the future. Different subject-matters linked to the professional world in broad sense will also be discussed such as unemployment, discrimination on the job market, cultural differences within companies, mobility, environment, equality men/women, etc.

Content and teaching methods

The discussions on the aforementioned themes will be based on the reading of newspaper articles to be found on the Moodle e-learning platform. This course, which can logically follow the NEER 2500 or 2501 course, also aims at helping students to prepare their entry on the job market, but this time by training skills such as negotiations, job interviews, the writing of a report, The aim is also to allow the student to know the professional world better, through the reading of newspaper articles, conferences, films, video sequences, company simulation exercises All skills will be trained (listening, reading, speaking and writing) although the focus will be on developing speaking skills in a professional environment.
Students are required to deliver a talk on one of the communication techniques related to professional life. During this presentation, they are asked to create interaction with the public. The communication techniques themselves will be systematically trained in class. All these activities require some preparation work to be done by the students who are also themselves responsible for perfecting their linguistic knowledge (vocabulary study, revision of grammatical points, ).

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisites:
This course if of upper-intermediate level, so students should have a good receptive and productive knowledge of the basic grammar and vocabulary and have reached an UPPER B1 level (reading, listening and speaking) of the " Common European Framework of reference for Languages " (CEFR).

Assessment:
Continuous assessment (class participation, daily work, oral presentation in group, )
Oral and written final exam

Course material:
Moodle e-learning platform (thematic vocabulary, revision exercises, texts)
Documentation file on communication techniques to be used by students for their presentations

Training staff:
Classes in groups of maximum 20 students.
The teacher is available during his/her office hours and can be contacted by telephone or e-mail.
Guidance is also available at the self-tuition centre (CAA) and the multimedia room (SMM) of the ILV.

Work load:
30 teaching hours
+ 42 hours of autonomous work