Academic Communication English (Spring 2023)

Course Website: http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/~acadcom

PURPOSE: This course is designed to help students develop the skills necessary to present research papers well using English at an international scientific conference.

TEACHER: Dr. Murray Sherk (msherk@ustc.edu.cn)

Office hours by appointment – arrange a time by email or by talking with your teacher after any lesson.

TEXTBOOK: None. We will use handouts. Keep all handouts for later use and reference. Handouts are given in class but can also be downloaded from the course website.

FOCUS: The course will focus on presentation skills such as organization, delivery, visual aids, and professionalism. Basic language skills like pronunciation and grammar will be mentioned only rarely in class time.

CLASS POLICIES:

1.  Attendance is required. Students who miss more than two lessons (4 classroom hours) will not be allowed to take the final exam. Being late to class by up to 10 minutes counts as missing half a lesson (1 classroom hour); being more than 10 minutes late counts as a full lesson absence.

2.   You must attend with the class section in which you are registered, but in some cases (with a good excuse for the absence), you may make up for a missed lesson by attending that lesson with another class section. Contact your teacher for further information.

3.   International conference standards of behavior will be expected in class. In particular, students should be on time for classes; students should listen politely and quietly whenever another student or the teacher is presenting material; and cell phones should be silent during class time (although phones and tablets may be used as dictionaries).

EVALUATION: To get credit for this course, each student needs to do the following things:

·       Attend at least 7 of the 9 classroom lessons. This rule applies even if you start the course in Lesson 2 or 3.

·       Get a grade of at least 75%. 90% of the grade is for presenting a paper in a simulated conference session after the classroom Lesson 9. Each student in a session will present a paper in their research area for 9 minutes and then answer questions from the audience for 3-4 minutes. The other 10% is for the student’s presentation transcript, to be handed in on paper at the end of his/her presentation session.

·       Complete a self-paced learning component of this course. Ms. 陈澄 will contact the students with further information. Ms. Chen will email to students using the student address you put in the teaching platform (研究生信息平台). You can check it March 6–13 to obtain information. Contact Ms. Chen at echocc@ustc.edu.cn if you do not receive text messages or email. Completing this part of the course is also required to get credit for the entire course.

 

COURSE SCHEDULE: Dates may change due to holidays or other factors. In particular, Wednesday classes will be a week later starting with Lesson 4, and Tuesday classes will be a week later starting with Lesson 8.