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Discussion
Discussion
Today is a consolidation class, where you'll work in groups to review and discuss the academic language and conventions that we've been studying over the past nine weeks.
Work in groups of three or four, and discuss the points below.
Writing
Writing
- What is 'academic language'?
- Has your own writing style changed over the past nine weeks? If so, how?
- How many techniques can you remember for writing cohesively? Why is this important?
- When do we need to use referencing in our writing, and what are some guidelines for doing this well?
- If someone who had never taken a language and study skills course asked you for advice on how to write well, what three pieces of advice would you give them?
Reading
Reading
- What do the terms wider reading and independent reading mean to you?
- Tell your partner about something that's you've read independently (without being asked by your teacher).
- What language do remember from the texts we looked at on opinion and emphasis in week 2?
Speaking
Speaking
- How happy were you with your presentation this term? Which areas do you feel you need to work on?
- Who in your opinion gave the best presentation?
- Take a few minutes to review some of the language points we've looked at in the various classes over the last few weeks. What new vocabulary, phrases or structures have you been trying to incorporate into your own speaking? How have you been recording new language, and has your method been effective?
- Have you used the phonemic chart to help your pronunciation since we first looked at it in week 3's listening class?
Listening
Listening
- We've been looking at both micro skills (the sounds of individual words and phrases) and macro skills (general understanding of the main points in a text). What areas do you feel you still need to work on in order to improve your ability to understand spoken English?
- To what extent do the following statements apply to you:
- I understand the words being said, but I still don't know what the speaker's saying.
- I can't understand where one word ends and another begins.
- When I see certain words written down I know them, but I don't recognise them when people say them in conversation.
- I find accents confusing.
What could you do on a regular basis to help mitigate these problems?
Task
Task
Create a group Padlet to record the main points from your discussion to share with the rest of the class.
Skills Guides
Skills Guides
We looked at the University of York's Skills Guide's web page on evaluating sources in the writing class earlier in the week. However, the site also covers many of the topics we look at on this course, plus a lot more.
- Explore the main page below, and identify the topics we've covered so far.
- Which of the topics will be most relevant for your chosen studies?
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
The overall aim of the Language and Study Skills module is to help you develop your English proficiency to level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), which is about 6.5 in IELTS terms. This was outlined in the Module Overview, where you can find the full learning outcomes of the course. The CEFR is a long (235 pages) and complicated document that goes into a lot of technical detail, so for simplicity, the four main descriptor scales have been added below. The full document from the Council of Europe in accessible PDF form can be found here.
Task - self reflection
Task - self reflection
- Read through the scales below, and think about which description best applies to your current level.
- What can you do over the term break to make sure your language level doesn't decline? (And to make sure you don't forget everything we've learnt!)
- What do you need to do next term to bring yourself up to the required level?
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