ENGLISH III COURSE

Presentation
Dear Student, welcome to English III. In this presentation you will know the
methodology, contents and activities of the course, which is offered by
Languages Virtual Insitute (Instituto Virtual de Lenguas) – INVIL, that
belongs to the International Relationships Vice-Rector (Vicerrectoría de
Relaciones Internacionales) – VIREL.

Course methodology

English III is a common basic intersciplinary course from the Formation

Component of Foreign Language, established for all the UNAD academic
programs, at Academic Guidelines of Research and Academic Vice-Rector.
This is a two-academic credit course, it lenghts 16 weeks for a regular period
and 8 weeks for a short one.

The code assigned for this course in Academic Control and Registration is
90121 and it is a methodological course, which means that it is practical and
theorethical, that’s why it can’t be retaken (NO puede ser habilitado).

The learning strategy implemented in this course is the Task Based Learning,
which is a strategy closely related to the communicative approach that
allows to develop communicative skills through a scaffolding process where
the students go from the simplest use of language until the comprehension
and production of more complex structures.
Course competences

According to the standars of Common European Framework of References

for Languages – MCER, the course focus on developing and strengthening
the following students’ communicative competences:

Oral and written production: The students express orally in English about
current situations at intermedia level and write short texts about academic
topics related to their discipline in a coherent and consistent way using the
proper semantics.
Listening and reading comprehension: The students read and
understand carefully short texts about their discipline and real topics. They
listen to information assertively about current daily topics and use them as
models to express their ideas.

Course content

The course consists of two units organized as follows:

• Compound adjectives
• Modal verbs
Unit
• Past progressive
1 • Time and enough clauses
• Use of -ING forms

• Prepositions and phrasal verbs

Unit • Apologizing/Expressing regret
2 • Present perfect tense
• Future tense
• Tag questions
Each unit consists of lessons with interactive exercises regarding
autonomous learning; you can find these ones at the Knowledge
Environment.

The course has 6 evaluative activities, that can be found in the Course
Agenda, with their score and starting and closing date. It is important to
check this resource to be updated about the activities to develop on time.

1. Recognition Quiz: its score is 25 points and it is an individual

activity.
2. Writing Assignment: its score is 120 points and it is an individual
activity with a small collaborative part.
3. Quiz Unit 1 and 2: its score is 110 points and it is an automatic
activity.
4. Speaking Assignment: its score is 90 points and it is a synchronic
activity.
5. General self-evaluation course: its score is 30 points and it is an
automatic activity.
6. Final Exam: its score is 125 points and it is an automatic activity.
 Synchronic activities

In this course there are some synchronic assistance spaces in order to

establish a direct interaction among the course participants. You can know
the schedule at the Collaborative Learning Environment.

Webs: synchronic meetings via webconference. Here some supplementary

activities related to the online course contents are developed.

Skype attention: synchronic meetings via Skype, where you can contact
your tutor and solve general doubts about the course and its activities.

Assistance at CEAD: you can contact English tutors in the centre you
belong to in order to solve doubts and questions about the course and its
activites.

Collaborative activities

Collaborative activities are developed in the forum where the students must:

 Interact with their group partners and tutor.

 Agree about how to develop the collaborative assignments with their

partners.

 Develop the tasks proposed in the activity guides.

 Express their ideas using their own words, without copying others’
ideas.

 Avoid using online translators.

 Share in different spaces following the netiquette rules.

 Automatic activities

Automatic activities are quicces to measure the students’ advance in

different skills such as reading and listening comprehension, and aspects like
gramar and vocabulary. All automatic activities, except Final Exam, have two
attempts.

You must have in mind:

 Watch time along the activity.

 Check the material (audios-readings) previously, in order to prepare

for the quiz.

Self-evaluation
Self-evaluation allows the students to make a critical reflection about their
learning process and evaluate their abilities in different competences of
English language, likewise their performance in different activities developed
in the course.
 General recommendations

 Keep a continuous communication with your tutor through the spaces

available in the course: internal mail, institutional mail, Skype account
and general forum.
 Check the News forum continuously to be updated about the course
news.
 Update your profile with your contact data.
 Read all documents like syllabus and activity guides.
 Read carefully the tutor’s guidelines sent by internal and personal
mail.

We hope this presentation is useful in the learning process you are

about to start.

I wish success in this English III course!!!