This 12-unit course is produced by the Foreign Languages Department, Medical College, Shantou University. Although it was initially designed for medical students, we believe it will be equally useful for students from other disciplines who are seeking to improve their language and cognitive skills to meet their academic goals.
We aim to help learners develop academic literacy through the mastery of three basic skills: academic language skills, critical thinking skills, and information management skills. We will not only teach learners how to get access to and search for academic information, but also how to understand and evaluate the information for their own purposes. And most importantly, we encourage learners to become information creators to produce and share the information in specific academic contexts.
1-1 Language for Academic Thinking
1-2 Defining Academic Language
1-3 Contextualizing Academic English
2. Academic Speaking
2-1 Academic Spoken Language - Contexts & Features
2-2 Academic Oral Presentation - Structure & Preparation
2-3 Delivering an Academic Oral Presentation - Opening，Ending & Other Tips
2-4 Communicating Non-verbally in Oral Presentations
2-5 Grading Criteria for Academic Oral Presentations
3. Academic Listening
3-1 An Overview of Academic Listening
3-2 Skimming and Scanning
3-3 Three Listening Modes
3-4 Note-taking Skills
4. Critical Listening
4-1 An overview of Critical Listening
4-2 SIER Model
4-3 Ethos, Pathos and Logos
5. Features of Academic Written Language
5-1 Formality, Objectivity and Complexity
5-2 Conciseness, Accuracy and Explicitness
5-3 Hedging and Responsibility
6. Structure of Research Articles
6-1 Structure of Research Articles
6-2 Rhetorical Moves in Introduction & Methods
6-3 Rhetorical Moves in Sections after Methods
7. Multi-textual Reading
7-1 Searching for and Questioning Similarities and Differences
7-2 Reading to Evaluate
7-3 Reading to Synthesize
8. Paraphrasing Skills
8-1 An Overview of Citation Strategies
8-2 Paraphrasing Principles
8-3 Paraphrasing Steps
9. Summarizing Skills
9-1 Summarizing Skills for Academic Writing: A Brief Introduction
9-2 The One-sentence Summary for Academic Writing
9-3 The One-paragraph Summary for Academic Writing
9-4 Summarizing Longer Passages: Steps and Skills
9-5 Summarizing the Introduction and Methods Sections of a Research Article
9-6 Summarizing the Results Section of a Research Article
9-7 Summarizing the Discussion Section of a Research Article
10. Literature Review
10-1 Literature Search, Analysis & Evaluation
10-2 Organizing Reading Notes
10-3 Scaffolding Literature Review
10-4 Developing Academic Paragraphs
10-5 Voicing Yourself - Citation Strategies
10-6 Voicing Yourself - Description, Interpretation & Critique
10-7 Writing an Abstract for Literature Review
11. Research Proposal
11-1 Contexts and General Structure
11-2 Key Points for Writing Each Section
12. Research Poster
12-1 Structure and Content of a Research Poster
12-2 How to Create a Research Poster
12-3 How to Deliver a Poster Presentation
Final Exam
