Bachelor
2020/2021
English Language
Category 'Best Course for Career Development'
Category 'Best Course for Broadening Horizons and Diversity of Knowledge and Skills'
Type:
Compulsory course (HSE University and University of London Double Degree Programme in Data Science and Business Analytics)
Area of studies:
Applied Mathematics and Information Science
Delivered by:
Big Data and Information Retrieval School
Where:
Faculty of Computer Science
When:
1 year, 1-4 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
10
Contact hours:
280
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The course is compulsory and aimed at helping students majoring in Data Science and Business Analytics develop English language competence. That involves improving students’ reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills, expanding their grammar and vocabulary range as well as preparing them for further studies and research on the University of London double degree programme. Students’ progress through the course is monitored by means of tests, written assignments, interim exam in module 2, IELTS mock exam in module 3 and is evaluated by the IELTS Academic test in module 4. Pre-requisites: the Unified State Exam (EGE) score is 70 points and higher or the International Students’ Entrance Exam score is 70 points and higher.
Learning Objectives
- to hone students’ reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills in English.
- to enrich students’ vocabulary.
- to advance students’ knowledge of English grammar and their ability to use it.
- to improve students’ pronunciation.
- to enhance students’ communication skills.
- to advance students’ critical and independent thinking skills.
- to familiarize students with the IELTS exam format.
- to equip students with effective IELTS exam strategies.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Uses lexis related to academic study and research in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3. Discusses study habits and skills. Answers True/False/Not Given and multiple-choice questions in IELTS Reading. Completes notes, tables, summaries in IELTS Listening tasks. Understands different types of diagrams. Writes introductions in IELTS essays. Knows how to structure an essay and a report and organise paragraphs. Understands the IELTS band descriptors.
- Uses lexis related to the environment in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses global problems and solutions to them. Completes flow charts, diagrams, sentences in IELTS Reading. Labels maps, plans in IELTS Listening tasks, does gap-fill tasks. Uses the active and the passive voice, the articles, sequencing phrases and verb forms accurately to describe diagrams with a process or a life cycle. Describes problems and solutions to them in an essay.
- Uses lexis related to culture in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses languages, globalisation, history. Answers Yes/No/Not Given question, matches headings in IELTS Reading. Does multiple-choice tasks in IELTS Listening. Produces an overview, describes the main trends, comments on the data in a description of line graphs, uses prepositions of time, numbers and amounts accurately in IELTS Writing Task 1. Plans, writes and checks an opinion essay.
- Uses lexis related crime and the law in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses crime, crime prevention, implementing laws, rehabilitation of criminals. Completes questions, practises True/False/Not Given tasks in IELTS Reading. Describes percentages, fractions, numbers and amounts in a pie-chart description. Produces well-organised main body paragraphs with topic sentences, reasons and arguments to support them in essays. Writes a discursive essay.
- Uses lexis related to scientific discovery and progress in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses famous scientists, inventions, innovation and progress. Completes summaries, matches information in IELTS Reading tasks. Does multiple-choice and gap-fill tasks in IELTS Listening. Expresses certainty, possibility, probability, necessity using modal verbs and lexical modality in speech and writing. Describes a pie-chart. Produces a positive/ negative development essay.
- Uses lexis related to town and the country, transport in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses city/county life, innovations in transport. Practises matching tasks in IELTS Reading. Labels maps, plans, completes notes in IELTS Listening. Uses tenses and prepositions of place, lexis related to location and directions accurately when describing maps and plans in IELTS Writing Task 1. Expresses common opinions and beliefs, avoids generalizations, shows one’s opinion in an essay.
- Uses lexis related to health and medicine in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses illnesses, pandemics, innovations in medicine, food, diet and mental health. Completes notes, matches information in IELTS Reading tasks. Revises how to approach matching tasks in IELTS Listening. Paraphrases using synonyms in writing. Produces a description of a table. Uses words that show cause and effect relationships in a cause and effect essay.
- Uses lexis related to the media and fame in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses traditional and new media, social networks, celebrities, advertising. Revises tasks types in IELTS Reading. Completes forms in IELTS LIstening Section 1. Analyses information from several charts, chooses features to describe and data to support the description with, produces a report. Knows all the differences between reports and essays of all types, produces a report and an essay.
- Uses lexis related to money, finance, business and industry in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses personal finance, government spending, international aid, career, equality. Matches sentence endings, completes summaries, answers Yes/No/Not Given questions in IELTS Reading tasks. Completes notes in IELTS Listening Section 4. Practises describing multiple diagrams, revises the key features of all types of diagrams. Produces an essay.
- Uses lexis related to character, relationships, sports in IELTS Speaking Parts 1, 2, 3 and essays. Discusses family, friends, community, sports. Completes objective summary tasks. Revises all IELTS Reading task types. Completes tables, revises all IELTS Listening task types. Distinguishes between different types of essays and reports. Produces a report and an essay of any type.
Course Contents
- EducationVocabulary: education, academic life, study habits and skills, introductory verbs for IELTS Writing Task 1, phrases for essay introductions. Grammar: tenses, punctuation, grammar for essay introductions. Receptive skills: skimming, scanning, identifying content words, locating information, identifying specific information, identifying paraphrase and synonyms; gist listening, listening for detailed information, reading around the gaps while doing the listening tasks. Productive skills: IELTS essay structure, paragraph organisation, writing introductions to the IELTS Task 1 and Task 2 essays.
- Crime and the LawVocabulary: crime and the law, linking words for contrast and concession. Grammar: conditionals, comparative structures, intensifiers. Receptive skills: identifying key words, predicting answers, eliminating incorrect options, gist listening, listening for details. Productive skills: describing percentages, fractions, numbers and amounts, producing a pie chart description; writing topic sentences, introducing reasons, supporting reasons, writing a conclusion, expressing someone else’s opinion, producing a discursive essay.
- CultureVocabulary: art, culture, expressions used for describing graphs, expressions for agreeing, disagreeing. Grammar: countable, uncountable nouns, noun - verb agreement, prepositions of time. Receptive skills: recognising the writer’s opinions and claims, identifying the main idea of a paragraph or a section, recognising the main idea and supporting details; predicting answers in listening and reading tasks, eliminating incorrect answers. Productive skills: comparing and contrasting information, producing a bar chart description; producing an opinion essay, expressing agreement, disagreement in writing.
- HealthVocabulary: healthcare, food and diet, medical advances, words that show cause and effect relationships. Grammar: reported speech. Receptive skills: skimming, scanning for specific words within paragraphs (finding names, place names, numbers), understanding paraphrases, identifying key points in the recording, understanding how ideas are related to each other. Productive skills: using the correct wording to describe categories, reporting on questionnaires, using synonyms for paraphrase, producing a description of a table, writing a cause and effect essay.
- IELTS intensive preparation.Cambridge IELTS tests, practising exam skills intensively.
- Mass MediaVocabulary: the media, celebrities. Grammar: noun phrases. Productive skills: analysing several charts to produce one report; answering several questions in one essay.
- Money and FinanceVocabulary: money and finance, business and industry, career. Grammar: participle clauses. Receptive skills: skimming; using keywords, synonyms and paraphrases to locate information in the text and complete sentences; checking grammatical accuracy of sentences; identifying and analysing the writer’s views and opinions, identifying correct information in the text. Productive skills: analysing several charts to produce one report; answering several questions in one essay.
- Science and TechnologyTopic 5. Vocabulary: research, scientific discovery, progress; lexical modality. Grammar: relative clauses, modals, revision of conditionals. Receptive skills: summarising the general topic of each paragraph, identifying topic sentences, skimming paragraphs to identify the main idea, distinguishing the main idea from supporting details, scanning a text to find details, reasons, examples. Listening for details, identifying how questions progress, identifying synonymous phrases for options, eliminating incorrect answers, skim-reading the questions to get the idea of the content of the recording, noticing information organisation Productive skills: using the correct wording to describe categories, reporting on questionnaires, using synonyms for paraphrase, producing a description of a table; producing complex sentences, expressing possibility, probability, necessity in a report and an essay.
- Society and the individualVocabulary: character, relationships, sport. Grammar: emphatic structures: inversion, cleft sentences. Receptive skills: skimming, using synonyms and paraphrases to predict answers, using the organisation of information to guide oneself while listening. Productive skills: analysing several charts to produce one report; revision of all essay and report types.
- The EnvironmentVocabulary: the environment, global problems, problems and solutions. Grammar: the passive voice, articles. Receptive skills: skimming, scanning, relating the diagram to the information in the passage, deducing meanings from the context, paraphrasing key words. Identifying the different parts of the map or plan by listening to and understanding a description or following directions. Productive skills: writing an introduction and an overview, describing the main trends, providing data from graphs to support ideas, describing projections for the future, producing a line graph description; producing a problem and solution essay with all the necessary components according to the following structure: an introduction, 2 main body paragraphs, a conclusion.
- UrbanisationVocabulary: location and direction, town and the country, transport, verbs to describe change, comment adverbs, fixed passive chunks. Grammar: prepositions of place, noun phrases, verb patterns. Receptive skills: identifying key words, learning from the existing labels on a map or a plan to predict the answers before listening, identifying distractors. Productive skills: describing how buildings and areas change, producing a description of a map or a plan; avoiding generalizations, linking ideas and showing one’s opinion, writing about common opinions and beliefs, producing an advantages, disadvantages essay.
Assessment Elements
- 1st semester Attendance and Classwork
- 2nd semester Attendance and Classwork
- 1st semester Homework
- 2nd semester Homework
- 2nd Module ExamThe exam in December comprises two parts: the written part, 80 minutes long, with listening, reading, writing and speaking, which is a 10-minute interview
- IELTS Mock ExamIELTS Mock Exam at the end of Module 3 is held on two days, has a written part of 160 minutes and a 14-minute long interview and serves the purpose of simulating the real IELTS exam conditions.
- 1st semester Tests
- 2nd semester TestsЭкзамен не проводится. Оценка выставляется по накопительной, с учетом результатов экзамена IELTS.
- G cumulative 1-2 modules
- G cumulative 3-4 modules
- G cumulative for the academic year
- G final
- IELTS Exam, module 4
Interim Assessment
- Interim assessment (2 module)G 1-2 modules= G cumulative 1-2 modules* 0.6 + G exam 2 module* 0.4 G cumulative 1-2 modules = G attendance, classwork * 0,4 + G homework * 0,3+ G tests * 0,3 Students’ performance during the final resit of the examination in module 2 is assessed by a committee of lecturers, the resit follows the same format as the examination, but G 1-2 modules = G exam 2 module.
- Interim assessment (4 module)G 3-4 modules = G cumulative 3-4 modules * 0.6 + G IELTS mock exam * 0.4 G cumulative 3-4 modules = G attendance, classwork * 0,4 + G homework * 0,3+ G tests * 0,3 G final = IELTS * 0.4 + G cumulative for the academic year * 0.6, where G cumulative for the academic year = (G 1-2 modules + G 3-4 modules)/2
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Cambridge academic English: advanced: student's book : an integrated skills course for EAP, Hewings, M., 2012
- Cambridge vocabulary for IELTS advanced with answers : self-study vocabulary practice, Cullen, P., 2012
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Writing for IELTS with answer key : 6.0-7.5, Dimond-Bayir, S., 2014
- Writing for IELTS, Williams, A., 2011