CM3 - Professional and academic discourse

The aim of this two-semester course is to practise understanding and creating texts written in a formal style with professional vocabulary. Students read/listen to as well as create texts such as presentations, reviews and research papers, get acquainted with various forms of presenting research, take part in discussions at the academic level.

The course Professional and Academic Discourse supports students’ professional and personal development. It focuses on the communication skills necessary in preparing and conducting research projects and presenting research results, as well as in the constant self-evaluation, reflection and education which a reflective practitioner conducts throughout his or her teaching career.

Within the course students will be expected to master their receptive skills focusing on identifying the most important information, particularly in texts written at academic level. In listening to presentations and reading articles and books they will be expected to take effective notes and write informative, concise summaries. They will also observe the form of communication used by the authors, evaluate its effectiveness and build their own repertoire of communication genres.

Students will be encouraged to read and listen critically and evaluate the content of the texts. They will respond in ways common in the real-life work environment, like oral or written summary for the benefit of a colleague, critique, discussion, letter to the author or letter to the editor. In a bigger project they will evaluate the information collected from different resources from the point of view of the topic of the project and they will present their findings in a literature overview or a position paper which they are required to write.

The course will also give students opportunities to practise expressing thoughts and opinions in appropriate ways. They will observe the structure and typical language involved in genres like research paper, research abstract, book review, conference poster, presentation and discussion. Throughout the course they will produce work in most of these genres, they will also assess the work of other students and give feedback.

Within the course students will conduct a group project requiring them to take joint decisions, plan and divide the work and collaborate with their team. In this experience, they will share their knowledge with and learn from other students, they will give, ask for and accept help, feedback and encouragement as well as practise their co-operation skills. They will be provided with the opportunity to observe and reflect on their roles in the group, on the group process, on possible problems and areas to develop.

The course will focus on the form of communication rather than its content and in the majority of cases it will be the students themselves who will select the thematic areas and the resources with which to work. This will give them the autonomy to define their most urgent needs and use the tasks from the course in the work towards fulfilling them. This may involve learning some useful content that has not been covered in the student’s previous studies, or focusing on the ELT terminology in English that may have been absent from their studies so far, but the student may also choose to correlate the work within this course with the research they will conduct later in their post-graduate course.

In conclusion, the course Professional and Academic Discourse focuses on communication skills within the context of personal and professional development. Student teachers will demonstrate the ability to comprehend and meaningfully respond to oral and written pieces of text at academic level, as well as produce their own texts with varying time allotted for preparation, which will involve fluent use of ELT metalanguage. Students will consciously organize their thought and plan their work, which will help them produce their work according to the rules and structures accepted in the academic and/or professional community. Students will also observe the use of linguistic devices involved in various kinds of professional and academic discourse, as well as APA format for academic papers. These skills will help them function as post-graduate students and as reflective practitioners later in their teaching careers.

The course is time-consuming: it consists of 60 contact hours in two semesters, but the written assignments will require at least additional 60 hours, with some more time for the reading of background literature for the research paper.

Purdue On-Line Writing Lab at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab (OWL)

Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom. Oxford University Press

James, P. (2001). Teachers in Action-Tasks for In-service Language Teacher Education and Development.Cambridge University Press

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C. (1994). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press

Swales, J.M., & Feak, C. (2000). English in Today’s Research World. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press

Leki, I. (1998). Academic Writing. Exploring Processes and Strategies. Cambridge University Press

Finishing the course, the student knows:

• the role and structure of basic academic forms of communication

• the rules of communication within the academic community

• the criteria of effective professional communication

• the rules of formal register in English

• the most common terms used in ELT

• the rules of APA citation and formatting style

• the sources of knowledge concerning academic communication

The student is able to

• understand academic and professional discourse, both written and oral

• share information and express opinions and reflection in a clear, professional way

• appropriately include information from sources in his/her work

• assess the effectiveness of a particular piece of academic discourse

• adjust his/her language style to the requirements of academic and professional use

• produce effective pieces of academic discourse

• attend to the form of his/her communication

• use the APA formatting style in his/her work

• improve his/her communication style on the basis of input

The student is ready to

• conduct research on the basis of secondary sources

• use sources of information such as databases, libraries, reference lists etc.

• share his/her experiences with other teachers

• participate in organized professional development events

• conduct self-motivated, self-guided professional development

The student passes the course after all his/her written and oral assignments are accepted by the teacher