Academic Skills

The aim of this course is to improve students’ English language skills in the academic environment. This will involve learning and practicing listening, writing and speaking skills, using a range of interactive methods. Students will also be offered practical training in using basic IT tools useful especially for social science students and academics (including speech recognition tools, online translation tools, tools for managing bibliography, references and organizing personal library etc).

Lectures (1-10)

1. Course outline. Placement test and team work to assess students’ level of English

2. Main sociological concepts and terminology

3. Identifying sources and conducting bibliographic research

4. Academic databases and how to use them

5. Basic IT skills for social science students

6. Synthesizing and critically analysing information

7. Writing and listening skills: an introduction

8. Public speaking: basic principles

9. Effective oral communication and presentation skills

10. Discussion skills: introduction to Oxford debate

Seminars: topics (1-15)

1. Introduction and ice-breaking session. Course outline

2. Source critique and referencing

3. Information gathering in practice (Google operators); using academic databases (EBSCO, Google Scholar, Academia, Researchgate)

4. Basic IT skills for social science students: practical exercise in speech recognition tools, creation of mind maps and graphs, reference managers and paper organizers (Mendeley/Zotero)

5. Basic analytical methods (SWOT, brainstorming, mind maps etc)

6. Academic writing (practical exercises: academic abstract, bio, CV, application letter, research reports)

7. Public speaking: student presentations (2-3 classes) including video-recording

8. Discussion skills: a discussion game (Playdecide)

9. Oxford debate

10. Summary and wrap-up