Duration
45h Pr
Number of credits
| Master in education, professional focus | 3 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
All year long, with partial in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The course focuses on reading comprehension of specialized texts related to the field of education.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1. extract information from a controlled vocabulary text in English by
o mobilising relevant linguistic and pragmatic resources,
o selecting one or more reading strategies appropriate to the task,
o adopting an appropriate attitude toward reading in English as a foreign language.
This is done with a view to possibly integrating the extracted information into a personal research project.
In addition, the course aims to develop the student's ability to
2. reflect on their method of learning English and adapt it to make it more effective.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
A. Word Level
Acquiring sufficient specialized vocabulary is a central objective of the LANG 3999 course.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
1.Understand the meaning of vocabulary items related to the targeted lexical fields.
Vocabulary mastery is assessed through the following tasks:
1.1. Choose the appropriate definition of a polysemous word based on context
1.2. Identify synonym or antonym relationships between words
1.3. Complete a sentence with the appropriate word based on context
1.4. Identify a correct definition of a word or match a word to its definition
2.Guess the probable meaning of an unknown word encountered in a text using contextual clues, such as:
*Its morphology (prefix, root) and/or similarity to French
*Whether it is part of a compound noun
*Its syntactic function in the sentence (e.g., distinguishing between "a cause" and "to cause")
*The semantic field of the sentence, paragraph, or passage
2.Make sense of a compound word (e.g., learning strategy, performance assessment, etc.)
B. Sentence Level
1.Understand sentence syntax, i.e., determine who does what (to what, to whom) in the sentence.
1.1. Distinguish a main clause from a subordinate or relative clause, including reduced relatives ending in -ed and -ing
1.2. Identify a subject formed through nominalization (e.g., Reading is important), including in complex sentences
1.3. Determine whether a sentence is active or passive
1.4. Identify the modality used by the author (must, should, may, might, etc.) and its meaning
1.5. Identify the meaning of cohesive devices that indicate relationships between ideas in the sentence (e.g., although, because of, despite)
C. Paragraph Level
1.Identify what element(s) of the text a reference word refers to (e.g., this, that, those, such, the former, which, etc.)
2.Identify the relationship the author establishes between pieces of information in the text (i.e., understand the use of adverbs of addition, contrast, causality, judgment, or degree of certainty)
3.Identify the functional value of sentences (assertion, explanation, example, hypothesis, generalization, deduction, conclusion, etc.)
D. Reading Strategies (Text Attack Skills)
1.Locate key information or identify the main ideas of a text-those around which the text is structured-by relying on:
*Paratextual elements
*Knowledge of typical paragraph structure and conventions of the text type
Assessment tasks include:
1.1. Identify main ideas (e.g., by matching a subtitle to a paragraph, creating a subtitle, or selecting an appropriate title)
1.2. Identify a correct summary of the text or a section of the text that captures key information or main ideas
1.3. Identify a correct paraphrase of a passage
1.4. Identify an idea that is absent from the text or a section of the text
1.5. Identify a correct inference based on information present in the text
2.Choose and apply one or more reading strategies appropriate to the task, such as previewing, skimming, scanning, close reading, rereading or skipping parts of the text, or using a dictionary.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
This course is not intended for complete beginners.
It is a broadly defined intermediate-level English course targeting a range of proficiency levels as defined by the Council of Europe, from advanced beginner (A2+) to independent intermediate (B1+).
Students are therefore expected to have already acquired the basics of English grammar (affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentence structures in the past, present, and future tenses) and fundamental vocabulary-typically through secondary education, evening classes, etc.
Students are also expected to have receptive knowledge of articles, pronouns, the auxiliaries have and be in the past, present, and future tenses, the most common irregular verb forms, and at least a command of the most frequent words (cf. the New General Service List and the learning tools provided on the website).
However, a set of fundamental basics is reviewed in the first part of the course.
This course can be complemented by evening classes or @lter courses.
For more information, visit www.islv.ulg.ac.be.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
The schedule (every other week over both quadrimestres) enables us to use time as a learning factor. This class is based on the one hand on regular autonomous work outside of the in-person sessions and, on the other hand, on in-person activities based on students' autonomous work and introducing new content. The course is based on the reading, analysis and linguistic explanations of education-related written or audio documents(ISLV Level-A coursebook for students in the master's in educational science) and an English grammar book (GAB ISLV or GABi).
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face course
Further information:
Biweekly 3 then 2 hour-class.
Thorough preparation of the given assignments is key to students' progress. Here is an overview of the different tasks students will need to perform:
1° Vocabulary exercises (definitions, synonyms,...)
2. In-depth study of some grammatical structures and introduction of new elements.
2° Communicative teaching/learning entails interacting a lot. This means that students are expected to participate actively in in-class discussions. And this is only possible if students prepare classes by doing some homework.
Course materials and recommended or required readings
- Level-A English for students in the Master's in Educational Science (ISLV), available on eCampus.
- Reading File for students in the Master's in Educational Science (ISLV) (Readings file for the written test in January and the exam in June); available on eCampus.
Exam(s) in session
Any session
- In-person
written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire )
Further information:
All sessions combined
Written evaluation (multiple choice questions).
For the first session, two written assessments will be organized: one in January and another in May/June.
1. January Written Assessment (40% of the final grade)
*A reading comprehension exercise based on one or more texts from a reading dossier
*Questions testing lexical and syntactic knowledge related to the documents covered during the first semester
*Students who fail this assessment in January will have the opportunity to retake this part during the second session (only)
2. May/June Written Assessment (60% of the final grade)
*A reading comprehension exercise based on unseen texts and one or more texts from a reading dossier
*Questions testing lexical and syntactic knowledge related to the documents covered during the first semester
3. Final Grade
Students pass the course if they obtain a final grade of at least 10/20, regardless of their individual scores on each part. However, both parts must be completed in order to pass the course in the first session.
If the final grade (January + June) is below 10/20 in the first session, students must take a second session exam covering the entire course (see above).
4. Second Session
The second session exam covers all vocabulary, skills, and reading dossiers from the entire year (semesters 1 and 2), as well as an unseen and unprepared text.
The exam consists of:
*Questions testing lexical and syntactic knowledge developed during the course
*Reading comprehension questions based on one or more texts from the reading dossiers (semesters 1 and 2), as well as an unseen and unprepared text
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
Contacts
Pascal MAQUINAY, ISLV, English teacher, p.maquinay@uliege.be
Martin POLSON, ISLV, English teacher, mpolson@uliege.be
ISLV Office: Trifac building (B33) Level -1
04 366 46 52