English (Advanced)

Purpose and Aim of This Course

The purpose of this course is to increase and integrate students reading, speaking, listening and writing skills, in order to deliver presentations at academic meetings and other occasions. Through actual practice in class activities, we will also cultivate academic English skills that are appropriate for Nagoya University students. Furthermore, we will master academic English by building upon the knowledge and skills acquired in English (Basic and Intermediate) courses, which required students to make persuasive and logical English sentences based on their own thoughts. We will also refer to communication skills acquired in the English (Communication) course, and allow students to attain knowledge and skills needed for presentations.

Message from the Instructor

In regards to the English presentations conducted during class time, students are not required to write scripts from scratch but instead write ones based on the English essays from the "eFace" reading section. All presentations will be conducted in groups. Students will prepare scripts and slides for their presentation, split their presentation into parts (introduction, body and conclusion), practice and present as a group. Each group will present for roughly 5 minutes with about 1 to 2 minutes per person. This is a lot of work to accomplish, but based on past class averages, this activity has been shown to increase students' reading and listening skills.

Course Outline

In this course, within the class time, you will be giving presentations in English as well as dictation and repetition (also called "shadowing") based on the English presentations given in class. Outside of class, you will be doing extensive reading from an English book of your choice.

1. English Presentation

• Presentations given in class will be based on a logical English essay, you will write out an outline and write a script for the oral presentation. This learning activity will be done in small groups and the group presentations will be mutually evaluated.

2. Dictation and Repetition

• We will be doing dictation and repetition in order to increase the variety of English phrases that we use during our English presentations as well as to get our ears used to English phrases so that we can not only learn how to read and write, but also to listen and speak in English.

3. Extensive reading outside of class hours

• You will select a book to read that sparks your intellectual interest and fits your English level from the English language materials in the Multipurpose Learning Area located in the Nagoya University Library and write and submit a brief book report. Generally, we would like to set the reading pace at one book every week.

To summarize, through the three class activities listed above, you will receive a well rounded English education by being in contact with English on a daily basis, acquiring English phrases, and making presentations by summarizing English materials in a logical manner.

Furthermore, in addition to 1 (English Presentations) and 2 (Dictation and Repetition), students will have homework on the electronic study material "eFace", afterwards in class we will have study activities based on those materials.

Textbooks

We will be using our own study materials based on contents from the extracurricular study electronic material "eFace", so there is no need to buy any materials.

Course Evaluation

During class, students will be evaluated on attendance, class participation, and the final examination, which will count towards 80% of students' entire grade. Extracurricular study will be counted as the remaining 20%. However, if a student is absent for the final exam, they will receive an 'absent' for the final grade.

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