An Academic English

Course

A step towards getting admission, and improve your

language proficiency to study,
in the well known universities overseas

By M. Iqbal Aman, DBA, MD, MPH (UNSW-AUS)

 Academic English Course
A complete and comprehensive pathway towards achieving higher scores on IELTS&
TOFEL required for studying at the Universities in USA, England, Australia, Canada,
and New Zeeland

Introduction

This course is designed for students with a high general English proficiency who wish to
prepare for undergraduate or postgraduate academic courses. It is an academic English
course preparing students who desire to enter the universities whose official language of
instruction is English.

This course is designed for a period of two months and will cover the following
objectives:
 To familiarize students with English language proficiency test specially IELTS
 To practice the skills and strategies necessary for doing this test
 To practice doing this test under exam conditions
 To assist students to understand and adjust to teaching and learning styles
appropriate to an American, British, Australian, Canadian and New Zeeland
university courses
 To equip students with the language macro-skills (listening, speaking, reading, and
writing) required to function effectively in an overseas tertiary academic
environment

The main components of the course:

I. Listening
II. Speaking
III. Reading
IV. Writing

I. Listening

General Objectives:

To enable learners to get used to spoken English across a variety of academic genres, in
formal and informal modes. Genres covered will include lectures, interviews, and
discussions. In addition to listening comprehension skills, learners are assisted in
developing skills in achieving higher IELTS or TOEFL accepted for entering universities
overseas.

Specific Objectives:

 To understand and recognize the purpose of the different spoken genres in an

academic context
 To understand the structure and staging of lectures
 To listen both for gist and specific information
 To distinguish between main points and minor details
 To recognize the role played by intonation, stress, pausing, elisions and other
features of continuous spoken discourse
 To become familiar with the range of accents used by speakers of English in a
multicultural environment

II. Speaking
General Objectives:
To enable learners to speak English at a level achieving higher scores at both tests
(IELTS & TOEFL) and, therefore, acquiring opportunities to enroll in universities
abroad.

Specific Objectives:

 To practice seminar presentation skills according to accepted academic

conventions
 To participate effectively in small group discussions
 To recognize and practice modality ( distinction between fact/opinion)
 To be familiar with conversation strategies and to practice such strategies as
interrupting, and functions of academic discourse such as agreeing, disagreeing,
elaborating, challenging, clarifying, etc.
 To attain a successful level of pronunciation in English

III. Reading
General Objectives:

To enable learners to process information in field-based texts and others written texts
typical of academic genres, and to use such information in related tasks in their tertiary
studies, such as oral presentations, written assignments, etc. Additionally, and more
importantly, it provides the skills to the learners to make the most of their time making
the most of what they read in an exam setting.
Specific Objectives:

 To recognize typical academic, written genres

 To understand the author’s purpose in constructing a text
 To understand the underlying structure of a text
 To recognize the main points in a written text
 To learn to recognize the interference, assumptions, attitude, bias, etc.
 To analyse and evaluate ideas and arguments critically
 To develop and practice speed and efficiency in reading by a combination of
skills such as skimming and scanning
 To guess the meaning of unknown words from a variety of clues such as context,
elements of word formation and affixes
 To learn to interpret graphs, tables, diagrams, etc. accompanying a written text

IV. Written

General Objectives:

To enable learners to develop adequate writing skills for the purpose of paraphrasing and
summarizing information from sources, and producing written expository genres as
required at tertiary level. Moreover, it assures enhancement of the learners’ quality of
writing in an exam situation to achieve the highest marks qualifying them to enroll in the
universities abroad for undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

Specific Objectives:

 To distinguish between spoken/written texts and academic/non-academic written

genres
 To recognize the purpose, generic structure and stages of required genres
 To identity the typical features of required genres
 To develop awareness of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation in writing
 To develop skills of paraphrasing, summarizing and synthesizing information in
the writing process
 To develop skills of reporting and quoting according to accepted academic
conventions
 To develop control of textual cohesion and lexicogrammatical feature in the
appropriate register
 To recognize and control the use of nominalization in academic discourse
 To introduce the concept of plagiarism and techniques for avoiding it
 To review basic functions such as definition, classification, cause/effect,
comparison/contrast, etc
 To become familiar with the academic conventions of referencing and
bibliography