English for Humanities (20008)
Degree/study:Degree in Humanities
Year: 1st
Term: 3rd
Number of ECTS credits: 4 credits
Hours of studi dedication: 100 hours
Teaching language or languages: english
Teaching Staff: Maria Antònia Oliver,Àngels Oliva, Adriana Patiño, Anna Asián and Marta Puxan
1. Presentation of the subject
This 1st year subject from the Degree in Humanities has as a main goal the acquisition of receptive and productive skills in English, mainly those of academic and argument reading and writing. The course seeks to prepare students to confront some of the challenges raised by the degree, not only towards achieving a knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture for those students willing to do so, but also towards guaranteeing communicative skills in one of the most important vehicular languages in the academic world. Thus, the goal is to consolidate skills and to give the tools needed to take subjects, to read academic texts, to attend lectures and to communicate in English in academic contexts.
The subject is structured around different registers concerning disciplines of the Humanities such as Art, Literature, and History. A variety of texts will be read: short fragments from literary works, short literary texts, fragments from academic essays and short essays. The texts will deal with topics such as wealth and poverty, the conditioning of gender on artistic production, war and interculturality.
Taking as a starting point texts and lectures, the vocabulary of a high register will be consolidated on several areas, and students will need to develop a variety of academic and linguistic skills, such as the writing of summaries and essays or the perceiving of the internal structure and cohesion of a text, in English.
2. Previous recommendations: level of English
At the start of the course, students should have at least an A2 level of English, according to the standards set in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Students who have not achieved an A2 level before the start of the course are encouraged to engage in some previous preparation. Otherwise, following the course may be difficult.
2. Competences to be attained
|
Transferable skills |
Specific competences |
|
1. Analyse and understand the organization of formal texts. 2. Synthesising ideas of a text or a lecture. 3. Identifying main ideas of a text or lecture. 4. Express and argue orally or in writing the own ideas. 5. Group working skills. |
1. Elaborating schemas about texts or lectures. 2. Summarising texts or lectures. 3. Writing short texts about the topic of a text or a lecture. 4. Express in spoken English own ideas. 5. Understand the main ideas of a lecture or a lecture class. 6. Getting used to a variety of accents, registers and communication channels in spoken English. 7. Taking notes while attending a lecture conducted in English. 8. Extract the main ideas and the message of the humanistic academic texts through its structural analysis and its discursive organization. 9. Extract the main ideas and the message of the literary texts. 10. Know the most usual features of the different genres (poetry, academic essays, journal or divulgation articles, etc.) and of the formal register. 11. Know and be able to distinguish the rhetoric norms of the English speaking cultures in formal texts. 12. Write well-structured paragraphs, according to the rhetorical norms of English. |
3. Contents
LECTURES: READING OF LITERARY AND ACADEMIC TEXTS
Unit 1: Introduction: The Structure and the Internal Cohesion of the Text.
- 1: Strategies to the reading of academic texts: Understand the whole idea of text and its argumentative structure: type of textual organization, writing summaries, elaborate diagrams and simplify ideas.
- 2: Grammar cohesion: intratextual references in a paragraph and between paragraphs.
- 3: Lexical cohesion: the register. Register variations and its effects in the literary and non-literary language. Art Buchwald, Barack Obama and Dorothy Parker's texts.
- 4: The academic register. Terry Eagleton's text.
- 3: Connectors and other useful expressions.
Unit 2: Wealth and poverty in literature and academic discourse.
- 1: Concepts: related to structure, cohesion and use of the academic and literary discourse.
- 2: Literary texts: G. Orwell, "Down and Out in Paris and London", F.S. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (excerpt), the aesthetics of wealth, the aesthetics of poverty.
- 3: Academic text: Raj Patel, "Stuffed and Starved" (excerpt). Vocabulary to speak about social and economic differences.
- 4: Lecture on poverty.
Unit 3: War in literature and academic discourse.
- 1: Concepts: related to structure, cohesion and use of academic and literary discourse.
- 2: Literary text: Graham Greene, The Quiet American (excerpt).
- 3: Academic Text: Mahmood Mamdani, "Inventing Political Violence".
- 4: Lecture of one topic related to "War and History" by an invited lecturer.
Unit 4: Creativity and gender in literature and academic discourse.
- 1: Concepts: related to structure, cohesion and use of academic and literary discourse.
- 2: Literary texts: D. Wordsworth, "The Grasmere Journal"; W. Wordsworth, "Daffodils"; L. Peters, "Why is Dorothy Wordsworth...?"
- 3: Academic text: L. Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?"
- 4: Lecture on a topic related to "Art and Gender" by an invited lecturer.
SEMINAR: INTRODUCTION TO THE ACADEMIC WRITING - FROM PARAGRAPHS TO TEXTS.
· Seminar 1: English for academic purposes and academic language. Paragraph writing stages.
· Seminar 2: Paragraph writing - Main points.
· Seminar 3: Paragraph writing - Frequent problems.
· Seminar 4: Paragraph writing - Cohesion.
· Seminar 5: Language and functions - Openings.
· Seminar 6: Language and functions - Argumentation.
· Seminar 7: Language and functions - Conclusions.
· Seminar 8: Plagiarism, sources and references.
· Seminar 9: Literary vs Academic language.
*The full version with the sections 5. Assessment, 6. Bibliography and teaching resources, 7. Methodology, and 8. Planning of activities is available in the original version
4. Assessment
*
5. Bibliography and teaching resources
5.1. Basic bibliography
*
5.2. Complementary bibliography
*
5.3. Teaching resources
*
6. Metodology
*
7. Planning of activities
*