2025/2026
English for General Academic Purposes. Advanced Course - 1
Type:
Optional course
Delivered by:
School of Foreign Languages
When:
1, 2 module
Open to:
students of one campus
Instructors:
Daria Chikhacheva
Language:
English
Course Syllabus
Abstract
«English for Academic Purposes. Advanced–1» course is designed for first-year HSE undergraduates to foster their understanding and using specialized academic discourses for tertiary education and research at an advanced level. In compliance with "Concept of Development of English-language Communicative Competence of HSE Students" and "Regulations for Interim and Ongoing Assessments of Students at National Research University Higher School of Economics", the course aims at developing English-language communicative, integrated, critical and creative thinking competences. Specifically, the course is targeted at building students’ core receptive and productive knowledge and skills belonging to the academic domain at B2+, which is expedient for annotating, extracting key information, paraphrasing, summarizing, integrating, and presenting coherent and cohesive oral (monologue, group discussion, presentation) and written texts (e-mail, summary). Essentially, the course comprises multiple texts and tasks employed in mainstream academic environments and practices. To be admitted to the course, students must have at least 60 points on the entry test. To successfully master the programme materials, the course provides for independent work on the online platform SMART LMS. Throughout the course various methods of assessment are used: written assessment (reading, listening, grammar and vocabulary tests, and written papers), oral assessment, independent work assessment (activities that students do at home and in class), and final assessment. There are no blocking controls.
Learning Objectives
- The course focuses on enhancing essential analytical and language skills to deal with basic reading, listening, writing, and speaking assignments in English for academic purposes at an advanced level, which would meet students’ immediate academic needs. While catering to different learning styles, the course fosters autonomous learning, team building and digital literacy competences. To achieve these goals, students are expected to - foster awareness of key concepts, challenges, trends, linguistic, cultural and ethical considerations pertaining to the topics of Education; Language and Linguistics; Business Ethics, while focusing on academic competences. - to increase awareness of and apply appropriate reading; writing; listening; speaking strategies and academic language command to extract and analyze necessary information and produce relevant oral and written responses, depending on the target audience/ interlocutor; purpose; topic and organization requirements; - reflect and enhance their style of autonomous learning, team building needs and digital literacy competences.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- students confidently demonstrate awareness of and convincingly respond to key contemporary debates on the topics of Education, Language and linguistics, Business ethics;
- students amply demonstrate awareness of and apply key academic conventions and language and functional grammar when dealing with written and oral information and assignment;
- students consciously employ active reading and listening strategies to understand an authentic printed or oral text more deeply i.e. activating prior knowledge before reading/ listening; skimming; scanning; annotating; using visual organisers; distinguishing between main and supporting details; creating an outline of a text, summarizing a text;
- students produce coherent and cohesive texts (e-mails; text-based summary; monologues; presentations), applying note-making; paraphrasing, paragraphing, making claims, providing supporting arguments and evidence; referencing
Assessment Elements
- Classroom Written Assessment (CWA): Test 0,25Written assessment includes: min 1 reading test; min 1 listening test; min 2 writing tests (email & summary) min 3 vocabulary and grammar tests.
- Classroom Oral Assessment (COA): Тест 0,2Oral Classroom Assessment includes at least one monologue and min 1 Q&A session
- Home assignment (HA): 0,25Student Home Assignment includes all homework during the semester. The type and volume of each home assignment is determined by the teacher.
- Final Assessment (FA): Тест 0.3Period of Final Assessment: the final exam is held in class within 10 days before the exam period. The release of examination papers: during the session. The exam consists of 2 parts: Listening (50%) and Writing (50%) respectively in the total mark for the exam. Zero points in case of cheating. Retaking exams: till the 15th of February 2026. Time limit: 70 minutes. Structure: 1. Listening (L) Listen to the text and complete the tasks 1-10. (max. 10 points) 2. Writing (W) Write a summary of a text. (max. 10 points) Grading formula: L*0,5 + W*0,5 = 10
Interim Assessment
- 2025/2026 2nd module0.2 * Classroom Oral Assessment (COA): Тест 0,2 + 0.25 * Classroom Written Assessment (CWA): Test 0,25 + 0.3 * Final Assessment (FA): Тест 0.3 + 0.25 * Home assignment (HA): 0,25
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- University success: oral communication : advanced, Cavage, C., 2018
- University success: reading : advanced, Eickhoff, L., 2018
- University success: writing : advanced, Norloff, C., 2018
- Английский язык для академических целей. English for Academic Purposes : учебник для вузов / Т. А. Барановская, А. В. Захарова, Т. Б. Поспелова, Ю. А. Суворова ; под редакцией Т. А. Барановской. — 2-е изд., перераб. и доп. — Москва : Издательство Юрайт, 2025. — 203 с. — (Высшее образование). — ISBN 978-5-534-18544-7. — Текст : электронный // Образовательная платформа Юрайт [сайт]. — URL: https://urait.ru/bcode/560849 (дата обращения: 03.04.2025).
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Collins COBUILD English dictionary for advanced learners, , 2001
- Collins Cobuild English Grammar, , 1994