Course Description

This course exposes students to university classroom behaviors and daily interactions, including introductions, asking and answering questions, and interacting in basic conversation at pre-intermediate level. It also prepares students to participate actively in whole class and small group discussions by using social courtesies specific to group discussions, including: turn taking, listening to the speaker; making connections with the speaker; interrupting and responding appropriately, coping with disagreements and using a variety of appropriate verbal and non-verbal features which are equivalent to the intermediate levels of work to gain and regain attention, communicate ideas, cope with disagreements and obtain feedback. The topics in this course are introduced via articles which model academic rhetoric, provide topic-specific information, and contextualize language targets. All teaching-learning activities are conducted through lecturing, discussion, writing and question-answer.