LANG1953-1

Duration

80h Th

Number of credits

	Bachelor in economics and business management	7 crédits

Lecturer

Xuan Giang Nguyen, Jonathan Solheid, Pauline Warroquiers

Coordinator

Jonathan Solheid

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

All year long, with partial in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

- Various subjects presented as "files", including vocabulary and different types of exercises in order to make the students familiar with the themes broached.
- Business vocabulary (intermediate level) as well as some vocabulary units retrieved from "Le BLED" (thematic vocabulary).
- Frequent grammar revisions.
- Listening comprehensions often based on actual radio podcasts (most of the time retrieved from the BBC News website).
- Oral skills: presenting a company or a news topic, holding a conversation and a debate, giving one's opinion, ...
- Academic writing.
- Press file.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

- To reach the B2 European level of language proficiency.
- In practice:
* oral abilities: the student will be able to express themselves fluently on business and/or economic topics as well as on more general topics thanks to the acquisition of common vocabulary (through the study of the 'Bled'; see "compulsory readings" hereunder)
* writing skills: the student will have to be able to deliver a paper of academic quality about a specific topic while respecting the rules in effect (APA norms)
* reading competences: the student will have to be able to understand an unseen text and summarize it, rephrase its information, comment it, and answer questions about its content
* listening competences: the student will have to be able to understand the information given in an unknown audio extract, recognize its main elements, and render the information as cleary as possible in their own words
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Implementation :
The course will train the student to work efficiently in an international and multidisciplinary team, among others in a leading position when confronted with a complex situation. The course will train the student to analyze his managerial practice with a critical and ethical mind when confronted with a complex situation.
Adaptability :
The course will encourage students to be curious and to show a scientific precision of academic level in their studies as well as in their professional life.
The course will encourage students to be creative, self sufficient and full of entrepreneurial spirit in their studies as well as in their professional life.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

- B1 level.
- Lower intermediate English MUST be acquired at this level. Everyday vocabulary and structures must be acquired too as well as some knowledge of business vocabulary.
- Obtaining the credits allocated to the course of English Level 1

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

- Various reading and exercise files based on business-related topids.
- Learning of texts vocabulary as well as derived vocabulary.
- Listening comprehensions from the Market Leader and from the BBC World Service.
- Group presentations in class of a company and newspaper articles, followed by a debate on the topic chosen by the students that will be assessed as continuous evaluation, on the part of the presenting students as well as this of those you will take part in the debate.
- Rephrasing.
- Learning of academic writing ending up in the writing of a marked essay.
- Preparation of a press file including articles chosen by the students themselves in a corpus of texts provided by the teachers, which will function as the basis for the oral exam in June.
- During the first semester, bimonthly conversation classes (discussions on different topics, case studies etc.) in smaller groupes. Attendance is COMPULSORY.
- Reading of a book / extracts of a book about which questions will be asked at the written exam in June.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)

Essentially in class. However, students will also be given different kinds of homework, such as:
* scientific research for the essay
* personal preparation and study of vocabulary
* exercises to do or finish at home
* preparation in-class conversations and presentations
* personal preparation of different documents (texts and video clips) that are deemed as part of the stuff to study for the written exams

Assessment methods and criteria

Important notice: The calculation of the final mark rests on the whole year's workload, that is divided as follows:
Written skills (55%), which include:
- Bled tests: 5%
- mid-term tests: 5%
- January's exam: 10%
- June's exam: 25%
- essay: 10%

Oral skills (45%), which include:
- presentation #1: 5%
- presentation #2: 10%
- continuous evaluation: 10% (5% for each semester)
- oral exam: 20% (based on a press file: students have to choose at least 12 credits within a text database provided by the teachers)

Work placement(s)

Organizational remarks

IMPORTANT
Here are the rules that will be applied to this course and its assessments:
1. We give repeating students 'dispenses' for different parts of the year, namely:
- both presentations (but NOT the continuous evaluation) - bled tests - the essay - the oral exam
HOWEVER, these 'dispenses' are valid ONE year, and ONLY if the concerned assessment hasn't been modified in the meantime.
If some students wish to be granted some of these 'dispenses', they MUST send a mail to Mr Solheid (jonathan.solheid@ulg.ac.be) BEFORE November 1st 2017.
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2. If a student misses any assessment, there are two possible scenarios:
a. the student's absence is justified (in most cases by a medical certificate); in this case, the student will be allowed to resit the assessment a few days/weeks after its official date;
b. the student's absence is NOT justified; if so, this means the student will be considered 'absent' for the whole year, and will automatically have to resit the concerned part in AUGUST, whichever part this may be.
In short, keep in mind that all the assessments we set up throughout the year are COMPULSORY, and there is no excuse for skipping any of them.
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3. As we want to make sure you master all the required competences, we will pay a lot of attention to the parts you may fail by following a system of 'absorbing failure' ('échec absorbant').
Here is how this will work: if you get less than 9/20 (NOT rounded up!) for one of the items mentioned hereunder, THAT failure will take over the rest of your results (however good they may be), and you will be obliged to resit the failed part(s) in August. The concerned parts are:
- the oral exam - the written exams (January and June) - the essay
This rule will still be applied in August if the student fails the part they have to resit.
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4. The results you get for all the assessments throughout the year will still be considered valid and taken into account if you happen to fail in June and have to resit the exam in August.
_______________________
5. Any unjustified absence from the first semester's conversation classes will be penalized by 2 extra credits to be chosen in press file for the oral exam. _______________________
6. As we want to ensure you make the necessary efforts to get to grasp with the English language and that you have the required mastery to be accepted in the upper level, we will pay a lot of attention to the mark you get ; that means that you will not be granted the credits for this course if you do not reach a full 10/20 at the end of the year.
A full 10 means that we will not round any mark between 9 and 9,99 up to 10, but down to 9 (so, if you get 9,98/20, this will be considered as 9/20). This rule will be applied in two cases : for your final mark in June, and in September, should you have to re-take your exam in August.

Contacts

- Ms Nguyen: xg.nguyen@ulg.ac.be
- Mr Solheid (coordinator) : jonathan.solheid@ulg.ac.be
- Ms Warroquiers: pwarroquiers@uliege.be
Office 207 in N1

English 2