Course detail

Academic Language Skills for Electrical Engineering and Informatics

FEKT-XAJDAcad. year: 2013/2014

The aim of the course is to strengthen academic language competences of students of electrical engineering and information technology by mastering academically-oriented communicative receptive, productive and interactive activities of English language on the proficiency level B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. An integrated approach covering five basic language skills is used in the process of English language teaching and learning. Spoken production includes activities like giving presentations on a range of subjects related to the students' field of study or oral presentations on students' own qualifications and experience. Spoken interaction contains reactions relating to being interviewed, participation in the discussion and other activities. Reading comprehension covers work with adapted technical texts oriented to electrical engineering and information technology. The examples of writing activities are an abstract or summary, a letter of job application, curriculum vitae or e-mail messages. The last activity, listening, is practised in each lesson. Students are encouraged to listen and understand conversations between native speakers, to take notes on the basis of a heard text, to listen and follow a talk within his/her field as a member of live audience. The course helps students to find a job thus supporting their competitiveness in the labour market.

Language of instruction

Czech

Number of ECTS credits

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

PhDr. Ludmila Neuwirthová, Ph.D.

Department

Department of Foreign Languages (UJAZ)

Learning outcomes of the course unit

Spoken production: giving presentations on a range of subjects related to the students' field of study, oral presentations on students' own qualifications and experience. Verbalising numerical expressions. Describing graphs, charts and trends.
Spoken interaction: indicating non-comprehension, interpretation check, agreeing and disagreeing, explaining a viewpoint on a topical issue related to students' field of study, developing an argument supporting his/her point of view, participation in the discussion. Being interviewed.
Listening: understanding conversations between speakers, taking notes on the basis of a heard text, following a talk within students' field as a member of live audience. Listening for gist and listening for specific information.
Writing activities: writing an abstract and summary, a letter of job application, curriculum vitae and e-mail messages.
Reading comprehension: work with adapted technical texts oriented to electrical engineering and information technology is mainly connected with writing and abstract and a summary.
Grammatical competence: revising grammatical categories and processes widely used in scientific/technical writing (passive voice, nominalisation, complex sentences); matter-of-factness in the scientific prose style.

Prerequisites

Knowledge of the intermediate level of English is required.

Co-requisites

Not applicable.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Teaching methods depend on the type of a course unit as specified in Article 7 of BUT Rules for Studies and Examinations.

Assesment methods and criteria linked to learning outcomes

Course-unit credit and final exam.
A course-unit credit has a form of a written semester test assessed by max. 40 marks. To be able to pass an exam, a student has to obtain 50% at least, i.e. 20 marks.
A final exam consists of an oral part assessed by max. 20 marks, a written part of a final exam assessed by max. 20 marks and listening comprehension assessed by max. 20 marks. A student has to obtain 50% at least out of each exam part in order to pass successfully a final exam.

Course curriculum

1. Oral presentations: key words and phrases for introduction, main parts and conclusion.
2. Oral presentations: content, language, body language, visual aids, question time. Teaching/learning vocabulary.
3. Seminar skills: indicating non-comprehension, interpretation check, agreeing and disagreeing, explaining a viewpoint on a topical issue related to students' field of study, developing an argument supporting his/her point of view.
4. Verbalising numerical expressions (fractions, decimals, percentages, formulae and equations). Giving students' individual presentations.
5. Describing graphs, charts and trends. Listening for gist.
6. Making notes for future reference. Revising grammatical categories and processes widely used in scientific/technical writing (passive voice, nominalisation, complex sentences); matter-of-factness in the scientific prose style.
7. Reading comprehension of adapted semi-technical texts oriented to electrical engineering and information technology. Writing a summary.
8. Writing an abstract. Basic information on translation activities and on recurrent language errors.
9. Formal and informal correspondence. Writing a letter of job application.
10. Writing professional curriculum vitae. Telephoning.
11. Being interviewed. Listening for specific information.
12. E-mail English. Increasing cultural awareness on the basis of listening.
13. Semester test. Course evaluation questionnaire.

Work placements

Not applicable.

Aims

Development of academic skills and knowledge oriented to the language of electrical engineering and computer technologies

Specification of controlled education, way of implementation and compensation for absences

The content and forms of instruction in the evaluated course are specified by a regulation issued by the lecturer responsible for the course and updated for every academic year.

Recommended optional programme components

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Not applicable.

Type of course unit

Language exercise

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

PhDr. Ludmila Neuwirthová, Ph.D.

VUT

Faculties

University Institutes

Parts

Academic Language Skills for Electrical Engineering and Informatics

Type of course unit