Keywords

General description

This course is intended for students studying towards a Bachelor of Science (Economics and Business Administration) degree. The course is to be completed during the 1st year of studies. The course is two periods long.
The aim of the course is to lay the groundwork for the students' communication competencies in English in both the academic and professional arenas. This includes understanding the conventions of English academic / professional communication and applying critical thinking to reading, writing and speaking about texts in English. In addition, the course aims to practise the skills needed in participating in meetings conducted in English as well as those required for socializing with international business contacts.

Learning outcomes

On completion of the module, students are expected to be able to
- understand the foundations of professional communication and apply them
- understand the differences between different styles of spoken and written English and their use
- understand the importance of critical reading with regard to written sources and practise it
- have the necessary skills to evaluate and continue developing their English language and communication skills independently
- understand and analyze the terminology and structure of a text in their own field e.g. news reports and academic articles
- summarize a text related to their field
- write a business letter
- participate efficiently in the different stages of the meeting process
- produce the written documents associated with meetings
- produce and present a project proposal
- communicate using different channels of communication (e.g. email, business letters)
- present data in various forms, including in visual form

Contents

The course will cover the different factors involved in professional and academic communication, such as the role of identity and the differences between structure and styles in both spoken and written texts, including business letters, news reports and academic articles. The course will include summarizing, understanding plagiarism, evaluating sources and different tools for self-directed language learning, especially those for learning terminology. In addition, the course will cover the different cultural conventions governing meetings, the language used in the meeting process, leadership and managing conflict as well as the structure and linguistic features of meetings related texts, including agendas and minutes. The course will also include the cultural conventions and language of small talk, the conventions applying to the writing of email messages, the principles and practice of oral presentations, and the presentation of charts and graphs.

Teaching methods

The average student workload for a 4 credit course is 108 hours (4 x 27). The distribution of hours between classwork, online work and other independent work will vary.

Teaching language

English

Evaluation and evaluation criteria

Numeric 1-5.
Grades are awarded on the basis of the completion of all the necessary tasks to a satisfactory level as well as active participation.

Belongs to following study modules