Professional English II
Code: 102761 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2502441 Computer Engineering | OT | 4 | 0 |
Contact
- Name:
- Mercè Mur Effing
- Email:
- Merce.Mur@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- english (eng)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- No
Prerequisites
Students should have preferably already done Professional English I, in the first semester. To register for this subject, the minimum level is Upper - Intermediate B2. All classes are taught in English.
Objectives and Contextualisation
During the second semester, the emphasis of the subject is going to be on the oral skills. At the end of the course, students should be able to:
- Express themselves orally, defend and communicate ideas and concepts in public
- Give simple and more complex presentations
- Synthesise audio-visual information
- Understand oral texts of different types
- Acquire technical vocabulary
- Express ideas in writing
- Work in order to acquire advanced linguistic structures, such as collocations and idioms.
- Search for information about grammatical questions, vocabulary and class-content related topics.
Competences
- Communication.
Learning Outcomes
- Use English as the language of communication and professional relations .
Content
- Defending ideas in public. Taking part in class debates and discussions.
- Preparing oral presentations to be presented in public
- Expressing judgments, giving one’s point of view
- Reading and understanding technical and general texts
- Summarising and synthesising information
- Acquiring specific vocabulary
- Correcting language errors
Methodology
The teaching methodology and the evaluation proposed in the guide may undergo some modification subject to the onsite teaching restrictions imposed by health authorities.
Directed activities 30%: The teacher presents the basic concepts and techniques related to this subject. There will be two sessions per week, each one of a duration of two hours. Great emphasis will be placed on communicative activities, as well as on group work. Active participation in class will be highly appreciated by the teacher. Class attendance is compulsory to pass this subject.
Autonomous activities 30%: These types of activities are mainly exercises that have to be carried out individually and their completion will be controlled regularly by the teacher.
Supervised group activities 10%: some activities have been designed for students to work with their classmates in a cooperative way. Group work is, thus, one of the objectives of this course.
Evaluation activities 30%: These are the different tests which the students will have to take in order to show that they have acquired the desired level. The evaluation activities will test the guided, the autonomous, and the supervised activities.
Other skills:
Apart from focusing on English as a language of communication and for professional purposes, in this subject we also work and evaluate the following points:
Thinking habits: Students will be encouraged to develop critical thinking and broaden their communicative abilities by taking part in debates and sharing their opinions ondifferent topics.
Personal work habits
Group work
Communication
Ethics and professionalism
Personal attitude
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Communicative and group activities guided by the teacher in order to develop all the related competences. | 40 | 1.6 | 1 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Students will have to develop certain activities supervised by the teacher, which will aid in the development of critical thinking and the capacity to synthesise. | 10 | 0.4 | 1 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Exercises done individually or in small groups, outside of the classroom. | 75 | 3 | 1 |
Assessment
Assessment
Students' performance in this subject will be assessed by continuous assessment and class attendance is obligatory.
The final mark for the subject will be calculated according to the information in the section called ‘assessment activities.’
The exam dates, the dates of delivery of any activities, the retake dates of any exam, as well as the exam revision dates will be established in class and will be published on the ‘campus virtual,’ but may be subject to changes in programming if necessary.
In this subject of Professional English II, emphasis will be given to oral expression. Students will have to give three oral presentations. There will be an end-of-term exam and students will have to deliver homework regularly. Class participation and contribution to debates will also be assessed and highly valued. There will also be four tests on grammar (error correction tests). The objective is that all of these activities will help students to be able to express themselves in a clear, correct and organized way.
The minimum mark to pass this subject is a 5. The retake will only be possible if students obtained a minimum mark of a 3.5 or above, in any of the two exams. The maximum mark given to a retake exam will be a 5.
If a student misses 10% of classes and does not deliver any of the compulsory papers throughout the course, his/her mark will be ‘not assessable’ (NA). Only on exceptional occasions (justifying the reasons of absence or lack of fulfilment of deadlines) will a student be able to retake any activity after the specified assessment dates.
Students with an average mark of 9 or above will be the only ones eligible for a special distinction (outstanding performance). Since the number of distinctions cannot be above 5% of the number of registrations per subject, they will only be given to students who obtained the highest marks.
Students who have enrolled in the subject for the second time, will have to do all the activities required in the course.
Important information:Without affecting any other disciplinary measures and according the current academic regulations, if students commit any of the following irregularities, they will be given a zero for the activity concerned, which may affect the resulting mark in the general assessment. If students copy or allow other students to copy their work or any assessable activity this will immediately imply the failing of that activity, with a zero. Thus, it will not be possible to pass the subject, if one of the requirements is to pass the activity, and no retake of the subject will be possible during the same academic year.
These irregularities include, among others:
- The total or partial copy of any assessment activity
- Allowing others to copy
- Presenting a group work activity not entirely done by the members of the group (this is applicable to all the participants, not only to those who have not done their work)
- Presenting material as genuine, when done by a third party. This includes translations, adaptations and any work that has not been carried out entirely by the student;
- Having access to communication devices (such as mobile phones, smart watches, pens with cameras, etc.) during theoretical and/or practical assessment activities (exams);
- Speaking to classmates during theoretical and/or practical assessment activities (exams);
- Copying or trying to do so during any theoretical and/or practical assessment activities (exams);
- Using (or trying to use) written documentation related to the subject during any assessment activity, without explicit permission to do so.
If a student has incurred any of the above-mentioned irregularities, the numeric mark of his/her academic record will be the lowest valuebetween 3.0 and half of the average weight of his/her marks (thus, passing the subject by compensation will not be possible). In future editions of this subject, students who have committed irregularities in an assessment activity will not be allowed to validate any of the assessment activities he/she’s taken part in.
To sum up: copying, allowing to do so, plagiarising (or trying to do so) in any of the assessment activities is equivalent to a FAIL, which is not compensable. The subject will, therefore, not be validated in future courses.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams or Zoom, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 oral presentations (one technical, one non-technical and one group presentation) | 45% | 15 | 0.6 | 1 |
| 4 error correction exercises based on the Guided Error Correction Books, Level B2 + C1- book1 | 30% | 4 | 0.16 | 1 |
| Class participation and homework | 10% | 3 | 0.12 | 1 |
| Final exam | 15% | 3 | 0.12 | 1 |
Bibliography
Throughout the course, students will need to use the following books:
- Kennedy-Scanlon, Michael, Pladevall, Elisabet, Cebrián, Juli (2012) - Guided Error Correction: Exercises for Spanish-speaking students of English. Level B2. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions UAB.
- Kennedy-Scanlon, Michael, Cebrián, Juli, Bradbury, John (2009) - Guided Error Correction: Exercises for Spanish-speaking students of English. Level C1-Book1. Bellaterra: Servei de Publicacions. UAB
Recommended bibliography
Murphy, R., 2012. English grammar in use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Software
We do not use any.