Week

Topics

Function

Week 1 Your family &

home culture

Language
Feature
Personal introductions, Channel open
greetings, identifying, signals,
Descriptive
language,

Week 2 Classroom
discourse/acade
mic
communication

Disagreements/agree
ments, asking and
reporting information,
discussion

Week 3 Job fair/interview Greetings (formal),

requests, persuasion,

Week 4 Public
speaking/present
ations

Persuasion, thesis,
organization of
thoughts, story-telling

Week 5 American college

student lingo

Greetings,
likes/dislikes, leave
taking

Week 6 Travelling on
break

Describing, requesting
information,
advice/suggestions

Non-verbal

Compare
American
non-verbal
communicati
on with their
own culture
Expectations Raising your
for
hand, eye
participation, contact, body
turnover
language
signals,
clarifying
questions
Turnover
Proxemics,
signals
eye contact,
(scaffolding), hand shakes
micro-
variation
(status, age,
role), back
channel
signals
Public
Hand
speaking
motions,
script/templa movement
te, sharing
on stage, eye
opinion
contact
Channel
Hand shakes,
open/channe friendly
l closing
gestures,
signals
common
(scaffolding), hand signals,
everyday
language use,
idioms
Clarifying
Frustration
questions,
facial
polite
expressions,
requests
confusion
facial
expression

Major Task
Impromptu
presentation

Debate on a
controversial
topic

Practice elevator
pitch

Prepared
presentation on
topic of choice
Conversation with
roommates role
play script

Information gap
problem solving
activity (train
schedule
scenario)