Undergraduate Course: Essentials of English for Academic Purposes (LLLG07147)
Course Outline
| School | Centre for Open Learning |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 0 |
ECTS Credits | 0 |
| Summary | Essentials of English for Academic Purposes On-campus (EEAP) is a four-week course forming Phase 1 of our ten-week Pre-Sessional Programme. EEAP focuses on the essential academic language skills you will need for successful postgraduate study at the University of Edinburgh. Classes, tutorials, recorded lectures, including guest lectures delivered by University of Edinburgh subject specialists, and regular feedback from your teacher will give you a strong basis for the more discipline-specific work and assessments you will do on your Pre-Sessional English Phase 2 course. You will submit a series of assignments and receive formative feedback. |
| Course description |
1) Academic Description
You can take the four-week EEAP On-campus followed by one of the Phase 2 courses if:
- you have an offer of a place on a University of Edinburgh postgraduate degree programme that is conditional on meeting the English Language Requirement for that programme
and
- you have the required English Language test scores for ten-week Pre-Sessional study
If you successfully complete the ten-week Pre-Sessional Programme, including achieving satisfactory results on all the assessments, you will be expected to progress onto your degree programme.
EEAP will help you develop your essential academic language skills. You will learn to how to approach reading academic texts; how to write clear, and appropriate English for academic contexts; how to take effective notes from, summarise and reflect on lectures; and practise participating in seminars and tutorials. You will learn to combine skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking in ways that you will need for postgraduate study at the University of Edinburgh. The course will foster your ability to study autonomously, and help you begin to understand how to apply a critical approach in your studies. EEAP will, therefore, provide a strong foundation in general academic and language skills. This will enable you to progress on to your Phase 2 'Academic English for your Discipline' course with confidence, where you will have the opportunity to apply and further develop these skills in a more specialised context.
2) Outline Content
On EEAP, you will learn how to read academic texts, such as journal articles, efficiently to identify key information, and how to make a critical evaluation of sources and use them effectively to support your written and spoken arguments. Work on writing will focus on how to write appropriate and clear academic English, the different ways you can cite material from sources (summarising, paraphrasing and quoting directly), how to synthesise sources to support your own written arguments, and how to reference and present sources correctly. You will practise listening to, taking notes from and responding to live and recorded lectures on academic topics. You will have the opportunity to participate in group discussion tasks to improve your confidence in speaking in academic contexts. You will be expected to express your views on academic material you have studied, and to respond to other participants' contributions. You will receive regular individual feedback on your writing and speaking, and be able to discuss your progress in tutorials with your teacher.
3) Student Learning Experience
EEAP is a full-time course, comprising 15 hours of contact teaching per week plus a minimum of 10 hours of independent study. You will attend classes with your teacher in groups of up to 16 students, guest lectures delivered by University of Edinburgh academics, and small-group or individual tutorials to talk about your progress with your teacher. You will also be set independent study work to do every day, including watching recorded lectures and doing self-study tasks on EAP topics, writing assignments and reading texts in preparation for classes. You will receive regular formative feedback on your performance on writing and speaking tasks. You will also be encouraged to complete a reflective journal on the listening activities of the course and this will be commented on by your teacher
If this is a revised course, please use this section to highlight changes made and reasons for these changes
This change is part of the restructuring of the 10-week Pre-Sessional Programme from three to two blocks, following the Pre-Sessional Review. The reason for the change is to extend the second Academic English for your Discipline phase of the programme, and merge the two English for General Academic Purposes courses into a single, more coherent course, creating more space within each block for reflective learning, and distributing the assessment and feedback workload for teachers to reduce stress points.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Read efficiently to identify, understand, and synthesise key information from academic texts;
- Write a short essay (750 words) in which the register is formal, and the language, organisation, and argument is clear and supported by appropriate references to the literature;
- Participate confidently in seminars in response to set reading and lectures;
- Take effective notes, summarise, understand, and respond to the content of recorded and live lectures;
- Reflect on and develop theirability to learn both collaboratively and independently.
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Reading List
All the materials used for delivery of the course are provided electronically, and there is no need for students to buy any books. We will also give you advice on useful online resources. However, you may find the following publications helpful as additional resources for your studies:
Oxford Grammar for EAP by K. Paterson (Oxford University Press)
Academic Writing for Graduate Students by J Swales and C. Feak (Michigan University Press)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Enquiry and lifelong learning; aspiration and personal development; outlook and engagement; research and enquiry; personal and intellectual autonomy; personal effectiveness; communication. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Mr Kenneth Anderson
Tel: (0131 6)50 9424
Email: Kenneth.Anderson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms Kameliya Skerleva
Tel: (0131 6)51 1855
Email: Kameliya.Skerleva@ed.ac.uk |
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