Academic English

For doctoral candidates in all disciplines.

The goal of this course is to develop your repertoire of standard language used in academic discourse and to help you master some of the finer points of English grammar.

Research papers and abstracts follow more or less the same pattern: a general introduction is followed by a description of methodology and procedure, after which research results are presented and evaluated, and conclusions drawn. Referring to authentic material, we will look at these sections one by one, focussing on vocabulary, expressions and grammatical structures which commonly appear in each. Course participants are requested to bring a few recent research articles from their field, written by native speakers of English, on subjects which are closely related to the work they are doing. They should be no longer than 15 pages, and should not be chapters from books.

In addition to in-class writing tasks, there will be online, self-study exercises, and everyone will have the opportunity to give a presentation in class. Feedback on all written and oral tasks will be provided on a regular basis.