ILMABMN-Academic Writing for Business Management

Module Provider: International Study and Language Institute
Number of credits: 0 [0 ECTS credits]
Level:7
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites:
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2023/4

Module Convenor: Dr Anna Ziomek
Email: a.k.ziomek@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

This module focuses on the academic language and literacy skills needed to more effectively manage coursework assignments on Business and Management Postgraduate programmes of study.

It is primarily designed for students whose first language is not English and studying on any of the Master’s programmes in Business and Management with the Henley Business School. The module focuses on genres of written assignments such as the written case analysis, reflective writing, and the discursive essay which are core to these programmes.

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

Aims:

It focuses on the key academic language and skills needed to successfully complete Master’s level Business and Management written coursework assignments.

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

• recognise and respond to the expectations of the key written assignment genre(s) in Business and Management e.g. the case analysis, reflective writing, and the discursive essay.


• 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 use the referencing conventions for their discipline


• employ a task-appropriate register and task-appropriate language 


• critically evaluate their own and others’ writing


• read disciplinary texts employing appropriate reading skills and strategies to critically engage with them


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

Assessable learning outcomes:

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Additional outcomes:

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Outline content:

Classes will have the following foci:

• recognising the key written coursework assignment genre(s) in Business and Management PGT programmes  e.g.  the reflective account, the discursive essay, the case analysis, or sections of these i.e. the Executive Summary, including:
  
  
  
  • expected structural & argumentation patterns and how these differ according to task type 
  
  
  • reading-to-write, source use and synthesisprocesses
  
  
  • how ‘voice’ and ‘stance’ are realised linguistically within these target genres
  
  
  
  


• Key skills useful to all academic writing within Business and Management:
  
  
  
  • incorporating sources using paraphrasing, summarising and direct quotation
  
  
  • employing linguistic features of textual cohesion to clearly signal relationships between parts of a text
  
  
  
  


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


• Lexical phrases for academic and professional communication, including expressing recommendations and making evaluations.


• Building discipline-specific vocabulary knowledge for Business and Management


• Reading skills and strategies for dealing with texts such as Business and Management cases e.g. 
  
  
  
  • careful reading to build gradual understanding of ideas and relationships between them 
  
  
  • strategic reading to identify specific sources or concepts (search reading)
  
  
  • strategic reading to identify overall nature and structure of text (skimming)
  
  
  
  

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.

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

• analysis of example texts from the target genres


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


• exercises practicing use of relevant lexical/grammatical items


• scaffolded reading-to-write exercises


• scaffolded written-language tasks

Summative assessment- Examinations:

N/A

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

N/A

Formative assessment methods:

Sessions will take a task-based approach, enabling students to receive on-going feedback from the instructor and from other students during class discussions.

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: 24 April 2023