IL2APIRN-Academic Skills and Language for Politics and International Relations

Module Provider: International Study and Language Institute
Number of credits: 0 [0 ECTS credits]
Level:5
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2020/1

Email: k.whiteside@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module focuses on the discipline-specific language and communication skills needed to perform effectively at undergraduate level in Politics and International Relations (PIR) in the UK academic context. It is primarily designed for undergraduate students whose first language is not English, and who are studying for a double degree at the University of Reading and MGIMO Moscow. The module principally focuses on the key PIR written coursework genre, the Essay, but also includes work on other written PIR genres and skills for oral presentations. 

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 ILA2PIRN in their credit-bearing work. Therefore, for the module itself there is no assessment or expectation of independent study hours.

Aims:

This module’s focus is on the key academic language and communication skills needed to successfully complete undergraduate written and spoken Politics and International Relations coursework assignments. It aims to support students who have spent their first two years studying at MGIMO Moscow with their transition to part 2 level study in the UK academic context. 

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 PIR (primarily the Essay, but also e.g. Reports, Case Studies and Reflective tasks)


• accurately interpret coursework assignment instructions/briefs


• employ task-appropriate organisational patterns at paragraph, section and whole-text level


• use a variety of task-appropriate techniques to incorporate and comment on the views of others in their writing


• accurately apply the referencing conventions for their discipline


• employ task-appropriate language (grammar and lexis)


• critically evaluate their own and others’ writing


• understand the expectations of Presentation assignment tasks in PIR


• utilise appropriate oracy skills to accomplish spoken language academic tasks

Assessable learning outcomes:

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Additional outcomes:

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Outline content:

Classes will have the following foci:

• The key written assignment genre in PIR, the Essay, including:
  
  
  
  • expected structural & argumentation patterns and how these differ according to question type 
  
  
  • reading-to-write processes and the centrality of source use and synthesis to successful PIR Essay writing
  
  
  • how ‘voice’ and ‘stance’ are realised linguistically within Essay texts< /li>
    
  
  


• Writing skills for other key PIR genres (e.g. the Report, Case Study and Reflective Essay) 


• Key skills useful to all academic writing within PIR:
  
  
  
  • incorporating sources using paraphrasing, summarising and direct quotation
  
  
  • ‘information flow’ in English-language texts
  
  
  • employing linguistic features of textual cohesion to clearly signal relationships between parts of a text
  
  
  
  


• Grammar for academic communication, including verb tense and form, nominalisation, clause and sentence structure. 


• Speaking and oracy skills and strategies for dealing with PIR presentations, e.g. 
  
  
  
  • organising and signposting spoken language texts
  
  
  • pronunciation, including sentence stress and intonation
  
  
  • non-verbal communication (e.g. eye contact)
  
  
  
  

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 will adopt an overall ‘genre’ approach, taking the social purpose of texts as the starting point to explicate organisation/structure and key discourse and language features.

It takes a discipline-specific approach to language and literacy development using example student texts and published PIR-specific sources in classroom tasks. 

Teaching will be learner-centred, taking a task-based approach to analysis of example texts fr om the target genres, guided ‘noticing’ of key organisational, argumentative and linguistic features in context, and scaffolded practice exercises. 

Summative assessment- Examinations:

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Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

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Formative assessment methods:

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Penalties for late submission:

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Assessment requirements for a pass:

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Reassessment arrangements:

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Additional Costs (specified where applicable):

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Last updated: 8 January 2021