English for Post-secondary Study

Course Coordinator: Catherine Wong, BA (Eng), MPhil (Ling); PGDE, Prof. Dip (CUHK)

Course Developer: Sue Deutscher

This course has been developed to improve students' language proficiency at the post-secondary level. It is particularly designed to equip students with reading and writing skills that can be applied to whatever subject they choose to study in the English medium at the tertiary level. It will benefit students who are concerned about their level of English language ability and how this will affect their studies.

Aims
This course aims to:

• Establish a basic knowledge of the use of the English language for practical application;
• Consolidate and extend students' English proficiency and grammar use;
• Provide students with a pre-foundation English language proficiency qualification.

Contents
The course covers the following topics:

• Text and fluency: improving students' ability to read and write fluently in English
• Words and meaning: understanding key words and ideas in English texts
• Good paragraphs: reading and understanding the logical sequence of ideas in a paragraph
• Putting ideas together: learning how to write unified paragraphs using coherence devices
• Getting started on writing: planning an essay using the process approach
• Producing a text: improving techniques for reading and writing texts

Learning support
This course involves 150 study hours. There will be eight two-hour tutorials to discuss students' progress and provide them with further practice in the skills taught in the materials.

Assessment
There are three assignments and a final examination. Except for some designated assignments, students are required to submit assignments via the Online Learning Environment (OLE).

Set book(s)
Swan, M and Walter, C (2011) Oxford English Grammar Course Intermediate, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wehmeier, S (ed.) (2015) Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 9th edn, (with CD-ROM) (International student's 9th edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press.