This course is designed for students who have had little or no prior experiences in English academic presentations at informal and formal levels. It trains students in the following two aspects:
(1) basic public and social communication skills, e.g. introducing oneself, impromptu speech and other types of short speeches, and communication with international researchers in research labs;
(2) basic academic presentations skills, e.g. describing experiments, giving definitions, group discussion, poster and ppt presentations, and Q&A
Through interaction between students and students and teachers in the class, students practice and acquire not only the basic skills of English for social and academic presentations also cooperative learning skills.
At the end of the course, students are expected to be able to:
(1) make a short self-introduction and an introduction on his/her current research
(2) make a short impromptu speech on social and simple academic topics of 3-5 minutes
(3) communicate with international researchers on social and research topics in labs and on campus
(4) understand the basic skills of how to describe experiments, give definitions as well as instructions
(5) participate in small group discussion
(6) make short poster presentations (with ppt presentations optional) and participate in Q&A sessions at poster presentations
basic presentation skills, short speech, group discussion, poster presentation, Q&A
Specialist skills | ✔ Intercultural skills | ✔ Communication skills | Critical thinking skills | ✔ Practical and/or problem-solving skills |
Each class is divided into four stages, the review, orientation and warming up stage, the lecture and controlled practice stage, and the free and application stage. Students are engaged in active participation in class activities either individually or collaboratively in small groups.
Course schedule | Required learning | |
---|---|---|
Class 1 | Guidance, Self-introduction, Icebreaking, Pre-course survey | Preparing to talk about current research |
Class 2 | Impromptu speech 1: social topics | Read the handout on Impromptu Speech and prepare the next impromptu speech |
Class 3 | Impromptu speech 2: current research description; necessary technical terms and expressions | |
Class 4 | Communication with international researchers/students in labs: Interpersonal communication | Preparing Survey on difficulties encountered in communicating with international students in labs |
Class 5 | Communication with international researchers/students in labs: Intercultural communication | Applying interpersonal and intercultural communication strategies in labs |
Class 6 | Giving definition and explanation of terms, concepts and theorems (Review of Basic Writing in Physics) | Preparation for describing an experiment/research |
Class 7 | Description of experiments (Review of Basic Writing in Physics) | |
Class 8 | Group discussion skills: Sharing information (Review of Basic Writing in Physics) | Finding differences between spoken and written language in English. Comparing spoken genre with what was covered in the writing class in the Spring |
Class 9 | Group discussion skills: Giving opinions | Read the handout on formal academic presentation structure, outline and characteristics |
Class 10 | Basic formal academic presentation types and structure | Preparing a research poster of either a conference or a lab type to bring to class |
Class 11 | Analysis of the characteristics of poster presentation | Reading the handout on common blunders of posters. Rehearsing poster presentation; Finding a real-life sample ppt file to bring to class. |
Class 12 | Rehearsals of poster presentation | Rehearsals of poster presentation |
Class 13 | Poster presentation | Preparing a research PPT file to bring to class |
Class 14 | Analysis of the chacteristics of ppt presentation | |
Class 15 | Practice of ppt presentation; End-of-course evaluation |
None
To be announced in class
Students are required to keep a high percentage of attendance and to actively participate in class. Creativity and critical thinking are highly encouraged and valued. As cooperative learning is a crucial point of training, students will need to be willing to work with other classmates in various kinds of activities. Student participation and collaboration in class are also part of the final evaluation.
Attendance, attitudes, performance and collaboration with other students in class: 30%
Presentations: 50%
Homework: 20%
Students' self-evaluation and peer evaluation will also be considered.
None