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Learning Outcomes

TopThis course aims to help international graduates from non-English speaking countries improve their basic academic English writing skills. This module provides training to enable students to use effective writing strategies to construct well-organized short academic essays with clear essay outlines.

Specific learning outcomes are:

minimise grammar errors in their writing;
use academic language correctly in their writing of various academic texts;
write well-structured paragraphs using specific organizational devices and patterns; and
write well-organised texts in response to academic texts

Teaching Modes

TopThere are two 2-hour sessions each week for a total of 12 weeks.

Throughout the semester there will be tutorials, mini-lectures, discussions, student-teacher conferences, quizzes, writing workshops, and independent and/or collaborative e-learning exercises.

The pedagogical approaches employed by this course are task-based learning, lexico-grammatical analysis, and learning journeys. The first two approaches aim to provide students with hands-on practice with authentic language materials (cf. scholarly texts) while the last approach is to encourage students’ development of self-awareness.

Schedule

TopES 5000 Graduate English Course (Basic) Course Calendar 1^st Semester 2018/19

Week (2018)	No.	Tutorial 1	No.	Tutorial 2
1 (13-17 Aug)	Online Registration and Appeals
2 (20-24 Aug) PH: 22 Aug – Hari Raya Haji	2.1	Course Information Note on plagiarism (with a focus on paraphrasing and summarizing) Assignment of Groups Pre-course Writing	2.4	Explanation of Rubric Expectations for Graduate English Course (Basic)
	2.2	Learning journey (a) Perception Towards Academic English Writing Vocabulary Expansion	2.5	Academic Writing Skills – Summarizing Summarizing(a) Academic Writing Skills – Paraphrasing Paraphrasing (b)
	2.3	Learning journey (b) Publishing and learning to write for Publication Vocabulary Expansion	2.6	Writing – Personal Learning Journey of English for Academic Purposes
				Submission: Learning journeys paragraph (D1)
3 (27-31 Aug)	3.1	Academic Writing Skills – Research, Referencing, and Plagiarism	3.3	Grammar 1 (Nouns and Noun Forms) Presentation: Group 1
	3.2	Positioning in the academic community Positioning through voice and referencing	3.4	Introduction to paragraph writing
				Self-analysis and Feedback: Learning journeys paragraph
4 (3-7 Sep)	4.1	Reading for organization 1 – General to specific paragraph Vocabulary expansion	4.3	Grammar 2 (Articles) Presentation: Group 2
	4.2	Writing assignment 1 (WA1) - General to specific paragraph (D2 of learning journeys)*	4.4	Text editing 1 (Article + Noun)
				Quiz 1 (Article + Noun) Submission: WA1
5 (10-14 Sep) IVLE Quiz on Plagiarism	5.1	Reading for organization 2 – Cause and effect pattern	5.3	Reflection for WA1 Writing assignment 2 (WA2) – Cause and effect paragraph*
	5.2	Reading for organization 2 – Cause and effect exercise Vocabulary expansion	5.4	Readings for cause and effect paragraph Vocabulary expansion
			5.5	Sample paragraph for discussion
		Feedback: WA1
6 (17-21 Sep)	6.1	Grammar 3 – Sentence structure Presentation: Group 3	7.1	Reflection and self-learning activity
	6.2	Text editing 2 (Sentence structure)
				Quiz 2 Sentence structure Submission: WA2
Recess Week (22-30 Sep)
7 (1-5 Oct)		Conferencing for WA2		Conferencing for WA3
8 (8-12 Oct)	8.1	Reflection for WA2	8.3	Problem-Solution Essay (In-class writing; timed)
	8.2	Introduction to essay writing
	8.3	Readings for problem solution essay
		Feedback: WA2
9 (15-19 Oct)	9.1	Grammar 4 (Parallelism) Presentation: Group 4	9.3	Grammar 5 (Verb forms & tenses) Presentation: Group 5
				Text editing 3 (verbs)
10 (22-26 Oct)	10.1	Quiz 3 (Parallelism & verbs)		Conferencing for WA3
10 (22-26 Oct)				Homework: 10.2
11 (29 Oct-2 Nov)		Conferencing for WA3		Quiz 4 (Parallelism & verbs)
11 (29 Oct-2 Nov)		Homework: 11.1
12 (5-9 Nov) PH: 6 Nov – Deepavali	12.1	In-class Assessment; timed		Homework: 12.2
12 (5-9 Nov) PH: 6 Nov – Deepavali
13 (12-16 Nov)		Course Wrap-up		Course feedback & Reflection for ICA

*graded assignment

Assessment

TopTo pass this module, students must obtain at least a C grade, but some schools or faculties may require a different passing grade; for example, students from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine must obtain a C+ to pass the module.

The final grade for this module will be based on the students’ continuous assessment, or CA (100%).

Continuous Assessment

Cause and Effect Essay 15%
Problem-Solution Essay 25%
Text editing Quizzes (timed) 20%
Class interaction 10%
In-class test (Problem-Solution Essay; timed) 30%

Workload

Top0-4-0-2-2

Workload Components : A-B-C-D-E
A: no. of lecture hours per week
B: no. of tutorial hours per week
C: no. of lab hours per week
D: no. of hours for projects, assignments, fieldwork etc per week
E: no. of hours for preparatory work by a student per week