ENGL E102F Wk 7 Sess 1_Comp

Recap

• Assignment 2
• Characteristics of academic writing
• Application of stylistic features
• Selecting appropriate vocabulary
• Reading for detailed understanding

Recap

persuade

your classmates as the general public

• Assignment 2
• Focus: Stay-at-home dads
• Task: a 5-min talk to persuade the general public that men who are stay-at-home dads should be supported although men are typically viewed as the bread winners

typically

bread winners

Why supported; What support

Mind your language

When we speak with a strong accent, people may not be able to understand us.

Mind your language

A TV series released in 1977

It was set in an adult education college.

Mr Jeremy Brown, the teacher, taught a group of foreigners to speak English.

They included German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Indian and so on.

Many funny things happened because of their ways of speaking English.

Mind your language

Let's watch it first.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhd1IqNM3M8

Mind your language

Any observation?

There are problems with meaning and pronunciation.

Examples:

right and left

underground

can refer to the railway in England

can refer to a secret society

Mind your language

hoping and hopping

syllabus and silly bus

working and walking

ship and sheep

/l/ and /r/

Reading strategies

• Predicting
• Skimming
• Dealing with unfamiliar vocabulary
• Scanning
• Identifying main ideas and supporting information
• Distinguishing facts and opinions
• Inferring viewpoints

Reading strategies

• Reading for detailed understanding
• Reading research articles

Reading for detailed understanding

When you are reading for detailed understanding, you need to work at a slower pace and focus on the details.

Reading for detailed understanding

Activity 1.9

Read subsection A of Text 1.1 and evaluate the following statement and examine supporting points and examples.

The CAS Project does not achieve its objectives.

Reading for detailed understanding

Ideas include

• affected him for the short time he was involved in it and did not provide enough local knowledge
• international school system does not teach enough about local issues

Reading for detailed understanding

Ideas include

• did interact with more local students for the project, but this only had a short-term effect
• may have provided him with an experience, but it did not really deepen his understanding of local affairs.

Reading for detailed understanding

To write in your own words,

While the CAS Project has fairly clearly defined objectives, the activities that students engaged in provided only surface level experiences and were not lengthy enough to encourage deeper interaction and thereby reach a better understanding of the local community, according to the two interviewed students.

Reading research articles

In the past few activities, we have been practising reading strategies using a newspaper article. Now we are going to apply selective reading strategies to a research article.

Reading research articles

Generally, we are trying to identify main and supporting points.

Activity 1.12.3 (P. 24)

We are going to find out reasons for Chinese students' lower contentment levels with social interaction during their time in British higher education institutions

Reading research articles

Brain storming

Any ideas

• why Chinese students' level of satisfaction is significantly lower than that of other students
• why Chinese students find it significantly more difficult to socialise with people from different countries than other nationalities
• what barriers they encounter when trying to become more socially integrated into the university community

Reading research articles

Practice

• Work in groups (2 breakout rooms)
• Discuss among yourselves and select a secretary to complete the handout I prepared for this activity
• Send it to my email account after you have finished it

Inferring viewpoints

Sometimes viewpoints of the writers may affect the message conveying in the essay.

This is how writers affect the viewpoints of the readers. There is sometimes a hidden agenda (viewpoint) in the passage.

Inferring viewpoints

Writers may not want to discuss the hidden agenda explicitly. We may need to infer from the ideas in the passage.

Let's look at how we can find out what the stance of the writer(s) of 'Best of both worlds' is.

Inferring viewpoints

Activity 1.11

There are some questions to help.

They include:

• Who are the writers?
• Why are the writers interested in the issue?
• Google Varsity and HKFP. What can you find out about them? What are their agendas as publications?

Inferring viewpoints

They include:

• Do the writers assume that readers possess certain knowledge about the issue under discussion? If so, what are these assumptions?
• Do the writers provide a balanced account of the issue?
• Is evidence for different perspectives presented fairly?
• Based on your answers to the questions above, what can you infer from the way this article is written? Are there any 'hidden' viewpoints from the writers?

Inferring viewpoints

These questions eventually lead to the following questions.

• What can you infer from the way this article is written?
• Are there any 'hidden' viewpoints from the writers?

What do you think?

Inferring viewpoints

The conclusion is

• Though seemingly objective, by covering the difficulties experienced by international school students, it is not difficult to see that the main purpose of this article is to question the common belief that international school education is always an advantage.

Inferring viewpoints

In fact, it is not quite necessary for us to ask these questions in order to find out the hidden viewpoints.

The title actually has already given you some hints.

The content indeed has revealed this hidden viewpoint.

Inferring viewpoints

Best of both worlds? International school graduates face language and cultural barriers.

Best of both worlds?

The question mark is skilfully used.

It is a question, a query on whether international schools can really be the best of both worlds.

Inferring viewpoints

The conclusion responds to the title too.

Some families make sacrifices to send their children to international schools because they believe it will give them an edge. But it seems that, these days, the international advantage can be a double-edged sword.

The word choice also does the work.

Module 2: What is it about?

This module covers:

• Developing an awareness of the purpose and nature of academic writing
• Reading and critiquing sample essays
• Sourcing an incorporating evidence
• Following academic writing conventions

Module 2: What is it about?

Chapters include:

• Developing an awareness of the purpose and nature of academic writing
• Expository essays
• Reading and critiquing sample essays
• Sourcing and incorporating evidence

Module 2: What is it about?

Chapters include:

• Following academic writing conventions
• Planning an expository essay

Writing purpose and intended audience

Please bear in mind that academic writing is:

• clear
• concise
• focused
• structured and
• supported by evidence

Writing purpose and intended audience

The purpose of academic writing is:

• to aid readers' understanding

It has a formal tone and style but is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary.

Writing purpose and intended audience

Writers write to convey messages through their writing.

When they write, they usually have their targeted audience in mind. Therefore, how much background information should be given, what tone and style and jargon terms should be used, and whether definitions should be provided have to be considered.

Writing purpose and intended audience

In Activity 2.1, you are going to listen to a dialogue about the differences between general writing and academic writing. Try to complete the table by filling in the gaps.

This exercise tries to show you how the audience can affect the purpose, the tone, the style, the language and so on in an author's writing.

Writing purpose and intended audience

solid evidence

entertain

understanding

Writing purpose and intended audience

academia

lay audience

impersonal

impressionistic

Writing purpose and intended audience

academic language

colloquialisms

avoid

objective

subjective

Writing purpose and intended audience

rigid

coherent

logical

points

materials

Writing purpose and intended audience

knowledge

experiences

citations

support arguments

referenced

research papers

articles

Writing purpose and intended audience

Summary

Non-academic writing

• no specific rules to follow when communicating and conveying your message and ideas

Academic writing

• more structured
• adhere to specific rules in terms of what you are writing and who you are writing for

Expository essays

One of the most important text types

What is an expository essay?

Look at these 3 words first.

expository; exposition; expose

expository (adj.): explaining or describing something

exposition (n): a clear and full explanation of an idea or theory

expose (v): to remove what is covering something so that it can be seen

Expository essays

Based on the explanation of expository, exposition and expose, decide which of the following are expository or which are not expository. Some of them may fall into both categories.

Expository essays

explaining and describing, an idea or theory, uncover something

Expository essays

explaining and describing, an idea or theory, uncover something

Expository essays

Now what are expository essays?

a type of academic writing that requires writers

• to investigate an idea
• to evaluate evidence
• to explain the idea
• to set forth an argument concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner

Expository essays

The text

• centres around a clear topic
• has frequent references to sources and/or evidence

The writer of an expository essay

• cannot assume that the audience has prior knowledge or understanding of the topic
• should present evidence, examples or definitions to enhance the readers' understanding instead

Module 3: What is it about?

This module covers:

• Reflecting on characteristics of academic presentations
• Listening strategies for academic presentations
• Analysing spoken academic texts
• Building academic language through listening
• Implementing academic oral presentation skills

Module 3: What is it about?

Chapters include:

• Reflecting on characteristics of academic presentations
• Listening strategies for academic presentations
• Analysing spoken academic texts
• Building academic language through listening
• Implementing academic oral presentation skills

Academic Listening Strategies Needs Analysis Questionnaire

This questionnaire help you to identify your own listening challenges.

Please download the google form from the folder, complete and submit it.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSca1_4uJgofTRzWaj-MuiiJhkAPMi4rxgVjSRiyOM1opbCBFg/viewform?usp=pp_url