English productive and receptive skills

Teacher(s)

Bulon Amélie (compensates De Cock Sylvie); De Cock Sylvie; Gilquin Gaëtanelle;

Language

English

Prerequisites

Level B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

Main themes

• Speaking and listening exercises to improve students' aural and oral communicative skills
• Writing and reading exercises. Starting from authentic and varied texts, the course offers both an initiation to reading techniques (extensive and intensive reading, skimming, scanning, etc.) and an opportunity to produce different text types (summary, translation, commentary, analysis, etc.).

As the course is taught to students specializing in languages, special attention will be devoted to language accuracy, complexity and fluency.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	Acquire an upper intermediate level of communicative competence in the following skills: listening, speaking (with or without interaction), reading and writing. 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 a topic dealt with in the media; 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; follow factual information presented e.g. on the radio or on television; summarize and/or present it; accurately understand non-technical authentic written texts; summarize, comment and present the information contained in the documents seen in class; produce clear and structured written documents of a relatively informal character (personal letters, e-mails, notes, etc.).

Content

• Listening exercises
• Pronunciation exercises
• Conversation activities (e.g. role plays, games, presentations followed by discussions)
• Introduction to effective reading techniques
• Reading for Meaning
• Introduction to different types of writing (with a focus on the argumentative essay) and their respective linguistic specificities 
• Writing of different types of writing (email, paragraph, argumentative essay, etc.) through, among others, a portfolio of texts

Teaching methods

A combination of whole group teaching and more practical sessions. The lectures and practical sessions will address in a complementary way the five skills that are targeted by the learning outcomes (oral production, written production, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and focus on forms/accuracy). The lectures and practical sessions are taught face to face (or online via Teams or using dual-mode teaching if face-to-face teaching is not possible because of a health crisis for example). The practical sessions connected with the 'listening & speaking' part of the course are given by the Institut des Langues Vivantes (ILV).

Evaluation methods

Evaluation for the course in May/June. The final mark for the course is the weighted mean of the following five main parts of the course:

• Oral production with and without interaction (pronunciation, reading for meaning, conversation, Flowchase): 20% of the final grade
• Written production: 20% of the final grade
  • Continuous assessment: portfolio of individual written assignments and Moodle exercises linked to the “Written production” part of the course (3%)
  • Essay writing exam (17%)
• Reading comprehension: 15% of the final grade
• Listening comprehension: 20% of the final grade
• Focus on forms/accuracy (vocabulary and error detection/correction): 25% of the final grade

 As we are aiming to train language specialists, the focus on language accuracy is of particular importance. Details on the specific weight of language accuracy for each part are available in a document on the LGERM1126 Moodle page. For the same reason, the use of generative artificial intelligence is not allowed for any parts of the evaluation.
/!\ Successful completion of the five main parts of the exam (oral production, written production, reading comprehension, listening comprehension, focus on forms/accuracy) is essential to demonstrate the skills and knowledge defined in the learning outcomes for the teaching unit. Students who get a grade lower than 8/20 for one of these five parts will therefore fail this course overall (7/20 or less if the mean is lower).
August/September session
-Same as in June, except for the written production part, for which the essay writing exam accounts for the 20% of the “written production” part of the course (i.e. there is no continuous assessment). 
-During the resits, students shall be required to retake only the exam parts for which they failed to achieve a passing score (10/20) and/or the parts for which they were absent. 


WORDS OF CAUTION:
- For the June exam session, the different parts of the exam will be organized on different dates (before and during the session). No "catch-up" session will be organized for the parts of the exam organized before the exam session.
- Students who have not handed in all the written assignments of the portfolio on time will have marks deducted from the "written production" part of the final grade (one mark per missing or late assignment).
- An absence for any part of the exam, be it justified or not, will result in an overall absence grade (A) for the whole exam.

Online resources

Moodle LGERM1126, Flowchase

Bibliography

Gairns, R. & Redman, S. (2020) Oxford Word Skills - Upper-intermediate - Advanced vocabulary. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Teaching materials

• Gairns, R. & Redman, S. (2020) Oxford Word Skills - Upper-intermediate - Advanced vocabulary. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Course notes, slides, documents available on Moodle
• Flowchase

Faculty or entity

ELAL