Writing Skills for Academic Purposes

                                          Course Outline

Dates: 12^th – 13^th September 2013 (Thursday & Friday)

Basic information

Students need to be consciously aware of what is expected of them when writing for specific genres
– something that educators often know subconsciously, but not consciously.  Teachers need, however,
to be able to explicitly teach students these expectations.  This course, therefore, gives
participants an opportunity to develop an understanding of ways to analyse the different genres
that exist in the disciplines they teach, using corpus tools and different techniques.  The two-day
course gives practical insight into how to use these tools/techniques outside the classroom, to
develop materials, and inside the classroom, to make students consciously aware of how the genres
they encounter behave or how they can write in them successfully.

Course summary

The overall aims of the course are to help participants develop:

·        an appreciation of key issues in the teaching of writing skills in an EAP environment

·        a theoretical framework which will make possible the principled development of English for
Academic writing programmes across a wide range of teaching and learning settings.

·        the skills and tools needed to develop English for Academic Writing materials.

Content

The course will cover the following areas:

1.      From IELTS to HE – bridging the gap

2.      Current key issues in academic writing classrooms

3.      The value of genre in academic writing

4.      An introduction to genre analysis

5.      An awareness of and an ability to use Corpus analysis tools – An introduction to AntConc.

6.      Academic vs. discipline-specific vocabulary – creating a discipline-specific wordlist

7.      Practical application of genre analysis in the classroom

8.      An awareness of the strengths and weaknesses in current academic writing materials.