IL1AFSN-Academic Skills and Language for Food Science

Module Provider: International Study and Language Institute
Number of credits: 0 [0 ECTS credits]
Level:4
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2020/1

Module Convenor: Ms Sarah Mattin

Email: s.mattin@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module focuses on the academic language and literacy skills needed to perform more effectively at undergraduate level in Food and Nutritional Sciences. It is primarily designed for students whose first language is not English. The module focuses on developing students’ academic language, literacy and study skills for successful participation in their degree programmes and completion of assessed coursework tasks.  

The module is non-credit-bearing and designed to support students’ disciplinary study, the expectation being that students will apply the skills they have learnt on IL1AFSN in their credit-bearing work. Therefore, for the module itself, there is no assessment or expectation of independent study hours.

Aims:

This module aims to support undergraduate Food and Nutritional Sciences students whose first language is not English with their transition to the UK HE context and academic culture. It focuses on the key academic language and skills needed for successful participation in their degree programmes and completion of assessed coursework.

By the end of the module, students will be better able to:

• recognise and respond to the expectations of the key written assignment genres in Food and Nutritional Sciences, the Essay and the Lab Report


• accurately interpret coursework assignment instructions/briefs


• employ task-appropriate organisational patterns in a lab report


• employ task-appropriate language (grammar and lexis)


• critically evaluate their own and others’ writing


• recognise and respond to the expectations of Presentation assignment tasks in Food and Nutritional Sciences 


• utilise appropriate oracy skills to accomplish spoken language academic tasks


• communicate fluently and accurately within their discipline by building their subject-specific vocabulary and grammar

Assessable learning outcomes:

N/A

Additional outcomes:

Outline content:

Classes will focus on the following:

• Recognising and responding to the key written assignment genres in Food and Nutritional Sciences, e.g. the Essay and exam ‘long answers’ including:
  
  
  
  • expected structural patterns 
  
  
  • Appropriate use of academic language, e.g. extended noun phrases
  
  
  
  


• Writing skills for other key Food and Nutritional Sciences genres (e.g. the Lab Repo rt) 


• Key skills useful to all academic writing within Food and Nutritional Sciences:
  
  
  
  • describing processes using appropriate lexis and grammatical structures
  
  
  • writing definitions using appropriate lexis and grammatical structures
  
  
  
  


• Building discipline-specific vocabulary knowledge for Food and Nutritional Sciences 


• Grammar for academic/professional communication, including ver b tense and form, sentence structure and nominalisation 


• Speaking and oracy skills and strategies for dealing with presentations in Food and Nutritional Sciences 
  
  
  
  • organising and signposting spoken language communication
  
  
  • pronunciation, including sentence stress and intonation
  
  
  • non-verbal communication (e.g. eye contact)
  
  
  • interactional skills, e.g. turn-taking, asking for clarification 
  
  
  
  

Global context:

This module supports internationalisation at Reading by facilitating successful and equal inclusion of students whose first language is not English in UK degree programme study.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

The module takes a discipline-specific approach to language and literacy development using example student texts and published Food and Nutritional Sciences-specific sources in classroom tasks. 

Teaching will be learner-centred, taking a task-based approach to:

• analysis of example texts from the target genres


• guided ‘noticing’ of key organisational and linguistic features in context


• exercises practicing use of relevant lexical/grammatical items


• scaffolded reading-to-write exercises


• scaffolded written-language and spoken-language tasks

Contact hours:

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Seminars	16
Guided independent study:	0	0	0
Total hours by term	16	0	0
Total hours for module	16

Summative Assessment Methods:

Method

Percentage

Summative assessment- Examinations:

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

Formative assessment methods:

Penalties for late submission:

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/web/FILES/qualitysupport/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf
You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Assessment requirements for a pass:

Reassessment arrangements:

Additional Costs (specified where applicable):

Last updated: 8 January 2021