Centre for International Training and Education

Academic English for STEMAims
This short course will help students develop their spoken academic English to describe and discuss
their academic work in a variety of situations. The course aims to give participants the language,
skills and pronunciation practice in order to develop their speaking. Participants will:•••

Build confidence in speaking through discussions
Work on common pronunciation issues faced by Japanese speakers of English
Learn strategies for vocabulary development

Outcomes
Participants will:••

Actively take part in an extended seminar-style discussion task about a topical, sciencerelated issue.
Design, conduct and report on a short survey amongst their classmates.

ParticipantsThis two-day course is for non-native English speaking students who are studying on STEM courses
at Nara Women’s University. It is anticipated that participants will have a level of English equivalent
to a minimum of B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference.

Schedule•••

Monday 1st – Thursday 4th March 2021
12 hours of synchronous teaching via video conferencing platform (e.g. Zoom)
2 lessons per day• 07:00-08:30 (UK), 16:00-17:30 (Japan)• 09:00-10:30 (UK), 18:00-19:30 (Japan)

Independent study
Extra independent study is not required as part of the course, although extra learning materials will
be provided, both language and skills based, for students who are interested in studying a specificarea further.

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Methodology
The tutor will use a communicative approach to language teaching. The teaching methodology gives
participants opportunities to learn through connected and purposeful communicative language
activities, including collaboration with peers.
Contextualised and purposeful: Lesson and learning content makes use of authentic sources toexemplify and explore relevant features of academic English.
Interesting and relevant: Activities are designed to be engaging and respond to the level and needsof the participants.
Interactive and confidence building: The online lessons are designed to maximise interactions andparticipation which will give students the opportunity to practice and become confident in using thelanguage studied.

Scheme of Work
Speaking
The synchronous lessons will devote a significant proportion of time to improving the students’spoken English proficiency. Students will study asking and answering questions, features ofpronunciation, such as weak sounds and linking and functional language for taking part in shortacademic presentations, including presentation of results, and for taking part in discussions anddebates on STEM-based academic topics.

Listening
Listening activities will help students recognise the authentic use of language features previously
studied, and to help improve their receptive ability for authentic spoken English.

Writing
The course will focus predominantly on spoken English, although there will be a small amount ofwritten practice of grammatical forms and vocabulary to aid the students’ spoken production inother tasks.

Reading
As with writing, there will be some reading activities to present linguistic items for the students touse in spoken production. Features studied will include language for presentations, vocabulary
collocations and language for reporting results.

Feedback
Participants will receive feedback from the tutor after their presentations and discussion task.

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CITE
The University of Leicester’s Centre for International Training and Education (CITE) is one of theleading departments of its kind. CITE prides itself on its flexibility in working with clients to designand deliver bespoke short courses to meet specific needs.
In 2020 CITE has been at the forefront of developing blended learning options to meet thechallenges of a much changed learning environment.
This course will be delivered by experienced tutors from CITE’s Insessional language supportprogramme.

Dan Jones
Dan has been teaching for over 20 years including working in universities and colleges in the UK,
Thailand, Libya and Japan. He has worked at the University of Leicester since 2009. He is currently
the programme director for undergraduate credit-bearing modules. He leads the English Medium
Instruction Teacher Development team. Dan delivered the face to face option of this course in 2016.

Lee Fairclough
Lee has been teaching English as a Foreign Language since 2002, including six years working at alanguage school in the Kansai region of Japan, as well as at language schools in Thailand andVietnam. In 2011 he began teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at an Australian university
in Hanoi, before moving to teach at a university in the north east of England in 2014. He has been at
CITE since 2017, and throughout the year teaches on and coordinates Presessional and Insessional
EAP modules. His qualifications include a BSc in Molecular Biology, an MA in Education, and theCambridge DELTA. Lee delivered the face to face option of this module in 2020.

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