English Skills
Course Code: ENG 127
Credit Hour: 3
Course Group: General Courses
This course is designed to equip students with the necessary skills to perform effectively and competently in the social and academic contexts. This is done through the integration of the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). The course focuses on enhancing the students’ abilities to use the language by exploiting a variety of materials in varied situations. Appropriate consideration is given to the development of higher-level grammatical construction, vocabulary expansion and extensive reading activities which are intended to increase students’ lexical density.
Listening: Listening for main ideas/ key information, listening for specific details, listening and understanding both implicit and explicit messages, listening and responding to texts (i.e., following instructions, answering questions, reacting to texts, etc.), listening and note-taking.
Speaking: Understanding social conventions (i.e., formal/informal speech, turn taking etc.), guided conversations (involving different functions and situations, e.g., greetings, requesting, apologizing, etc.), impromptu talks, reporting news items, role-plays and simulations, preparing and presenting talks on a given theme, interviews, story telling, informal debates and group discussions, public speaking.
Reading: Reading strategies (skimming, scanning, predicting, inference, etc.), speed reading, active reading (highlighting, getting information from text quickly finding your way around texts noting key words, following main arguments, interacting with the text and summarizing), reading to improve linguistic skills and expand vocabulary; understanding overall discourse to relate structure and meaning to the analysis and comprehension of the text, extensive reading (reading outside class books selected by teachers), reading journal articles.
Writing: Paraphrasing, summarizing, organizing an essay: thesis statement, Supporting sentences, logical order and conclusions, writing essays following different modes of writing: argumentative essay and research essay, business Letters: Sales Letter, Order Letter, Complaint Letter, Letter of Recommendation, Letter of Resignation.
Reference Books:
- Michael Swan: Practical English Usage
- Raymond Murphy: Intermediate English Grammar
- Wren & Martin: Intermediate English Grammar
- Chapman: The Power of Writing