Advanced English language skills II

Teacher(s)

Dupont Maïté (compensates Gilquin Gaëtanelle); Gilquin Gaëtanelle;

Language

English

Prerequisites

The prerequisite(s) for this Teaching Unit (Unité d’enseignement – UE) for the programmes/courses that offer this Teaching Unit are specified at the end of this sheet.

Main themes

A wide range of written texts and multimedia documents are used as a prompt for receptive and productive activities in both speech and writing.
The focus is on vocabulary extension, grammatical accuracy and coherent argumentation.
Special attention is devoted to intercultural communication.
Lexical, grammatical and discursive differences between the target language and French are highlighted and practised through translation exercises.

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	To acquire advanced productive and receptive skills in both speech and writing (B2+ level - Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). At the end of the course, the student will be able to: - follow extended speech even when it is not clearly structured and when relationships are only implied and not signalled explicitly; - understand standard spoken language, live or broadcast; - easily follow complex interactions between third parties in group discussion and debate, even on abstract, complex unfamiliar topics; - understand spoken language displaying light regional varieties; - easily summarize lectures, conferences and talks (even on specialized topics) presented by native speakers; - understand a wide range of journalistic, literary or domain-specific texts; - appreciate stylistic differences between texts (written or spoken); - discover the structure of discourse; - recognize stylistic devices typical of the target language and provide equivalents in his/her mother tongue; - identify the targeted readership of a text; - have a good command of a broad lexical repertoire allowing gaps to be readily overcome with circumlocutions and avoidance strategies; - have a good command of idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms; - make no significant vocabulary errors; - consistently maintain a high degree of grammatical accuracy; errors are rare; - be able to vary intonation and place sentence stress correctly in order to express finer shades of meaning; - use consistent and accurate layout, paragraphing, spelling and punctuation; - produce clear, smoothly flowing, well-structured speech, showing controlled use of organizational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

Content

• Vocabulary extension with particular focus on its appropriate use in context (collocations, register).
• Discursive and rhetorical techniques, typical of the target language.
• Lexical and structural properties of written and spoken discourse in the target language.
• Developing writing skills via the use of online tools.

Teaching methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

• Formal lectures focused on systematic vocabulary extension, grammatical accuracy and stylistic appropriateness and the quality of translation.
• Exercise sessions focused more particularly on oral production (phonetic and grammatical accuracy, lexical range and fluency).
• Self-study: writing skills Moodle module on the use of online resources.

Evaluation methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

A. Continuous assessment:
1. Portfolio of individual written assignments spread over the first and second term
2. Individual oral exercise
3. Active participation in class and in the exercise sessions
B. Exam made up of five main parts:
1. Oral production – with and without interaction (20% of the final grade)
2. Written production (20% of the final grade)
3. Reading comprehension (10% of the final grade)
4. Listening comprehension (10% of the final grade)
5. Focus on forms/accuracy (40% of the final grade)

• Journal'ease vocabulary (15% of the final grade): exemption test in January covering letters A to J (7.5% of the final grade) and exam covering letters A to J (for students who failed the exemption test in January) and letters K to Z (for all students)
• Translation French > English (10% of the final grade)
• Error detection/correction (10% of the final grade)
• Use of online resources (5% of the final grade): completing the entire writing skills Moodle module on the use of online resources

Students who get a grade lower than 8/20 for one of the five main parts of the exam (oral production, written production, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, focus on forms/accuracy) will fail this course overall (7/20 or less if the mean is lower).
During the resits (September session), students shall be required to retake only the parts of the exam (among the five main parts) for which they failed to achieve a passing score (10/20).
WORDS OF CAUTION:

• Students who have not handed in all the written assignments of the portfolio on time and/or who have not done the individual oral exercise on the scheduled date will have marks deducted from the final grade (one mark per missing or late assignment/exercise).
  
• For the June exam session, some parts of the exam will be organized before the exam session. For these parts of the exam, no "catch-up" session will be organized.
  

Online resources

Moodle

Bibliography

• Andreyev, J. (2015) Journal'ease vocabulaire - Tous les mots qu'il vous faut pour lire aisément un journal anglais ou américain. 6e édition. Bréal. ISBN: 978-2-7495-3452-7.
  
• Andreyev, J. (2015) Journal'ease exercices - Tous les mots qu'il vous faut pour lire aisément un journal anglais ou américain. 6e édition. Bréal. ISBN: 978-2-7495-3453-4.
  

Teaching materials

• Notes de cours et Powerpoint sur Moodle
• Andreyev, J. (2015) Journal'ease vocabulaire - Tous les mots qu'il vous faut pour lire aisément un journal anglais ou américain. 6e édition. Bréal. ISBN: 978-2-7495-3452-7.

Faculty or entity

ELAL