Level B1 of the Common Europea Framework of Reference for Languages
1. Speaking and listening skills: (i) listening comprehension will be promoted through acquisition and learning exercises while interactive exercises will aim to improve students' oral skills (pronunciation, intonation, accentuation) as well as their communicative/interactive skills. Conversation exercises in small groups will be organised as well as language laboratory exercises (30 hours with a limited number of students per session)
2. This course also aims to develop vocabulary at intermediate level : various lexical exercises will be proposed and self tuition promoted.
3. Grammatical applications: occasional enforcement of grammatical competence (morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects).
Acquire a higher intermediate level of communicative competence [B2 level in two skills: listening and speaking (both individual and interactive)].
After completing the course the student will be able :
- to understand and take part in an unplanned conversation (e.g. with a native speaker) about an everyday topic or (ii) a topic dealt with in the media
- to take part in a discussion about a topic with which s/he is familiar: understand the arguments put forward, be able to summarize them and express a personal opinion
- to follow with ease factual information presented e.g. on the radio or on television; be able to summarize and/or make a presentation on it.
The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
The formal assessment consists of 3 parts, in line with the objectives outlined above. The topics used will be the same as those covered throughout the course.
- Assessment of the linguistic code (vocabulary knowledge): 20% of the final mark.
- Assessment of listening comprehension (both micro and macro comprehension): 20% of the mark.
- Oral skills assessment (individual and interactive): 60% of the mark..
It is obligatory to pass all three parts.
- course (1h/sem): discussion about divers topics, by the use of authentic material (press articles and recordings). Analysis of the characteristics (style, structure, content, vocabulary) of the various types of interaction (presentations, debates, interviews, etc.)
- language laboratory exercises (1h/sem) on authentic documents (in particular audio documents) and conversation tutorials (2h/sem, groups of maximum 20 students). These sessions will also include specific exercises in order to improve oral fluency and pronunciation.
-40 hours of individual work, involving / including specifically: (i) systematic and personal study of vocabulary coupled with listening comprehension materials (self-study) and (ii) Preparation of listening and speaking exercises.
The topics covered mainly feature in the media and deal with society, politics, sports, culture (in a broad sense) or current affairs
Course Supervision/Course Holder : The coordination of the course is entrusted to one academic member of the (GERM department) department of Germanic Languages. Tutorials will be given by an assistant, who will also take part in the formal assessment.
