Courses

Reading and Writing

This course essentially emphasizes skills in reading, critical thinking, and writing. It is designed to enhance the academic reading skills for successful reading ability as required in college-level courses. Emphasis is placed on strategies for effective reading and the utilization of these strategies to improve comprehension, analytical skills, and overall reading speed.

The course also aims at expanding students’ vocabulary range and strengthening their abilities to use different strategies to deduce the meaning of unknown words. They become better thinkers through synthesizing information or reacting to viewpoints in the readings. Ultimately, they become better writers through different types of writing assignments that require them to apply language, grammar, and content in a structured and coherent way.

Competences that the students acquire by the end of this program:

The students can:

• read a wide range of authentic, long, complex texts from social and academic sources and comprehend them in detail with occasional need for dictionary;
• identify fine points of detail including attitudes and opinions which are not explicitly stated;
• write clear and well structured texts about complex subjects showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices and express their point of view at some length;
• incorporate other writers work into their own papers using quoting, summarizing and paraphrasing in a reasonably effective way.

Listening and Speaking

This course essentially emphasizes listening, speaking and critical thinking skills with additional focus on academic vocabulary and skills. Students become better listeners through listening to authentic radio reports, interviews, lectures and other genres and practicing various listening strategies. They become better thinkers through activities that prompt them to make inferences. And finally, they become better communicators through extended speaking tasks that require them to use the vocabulary and grammar they have learned in both rehearsed and extemporaneous speeches.

Competences that the students will acquire by the end of this program:

The students will be able to:

• understand extended speech reasonably well even when it is fairly accentuated or is not clearly structured or/and when relationships are only implied and not signaled explicitly;
• express themselves fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions;
• use language flexibly and effectively for social and academic purposes;
• speak at length, formulating ideas and opinions coherently with reasonable precision, and adequately relate their contribution to those of other speakers;
• give a clear, well-structured presentation of a complex subject, expanding and supporting points of view at some length with subsidiary points, reasons and relevant examples;
• effectively distinguish between and apply formal and informal registers.

Language Use

This course aims to develop students’ deeper awareness of grammar points and provides them with wider practice of accurate, meaningful and appropriate application of those points in various contexts. Practice is communicative and includes both oral and written work, designed to reinforce and perfect students’ grammar usage.

Source:www.ada.edu.az