I.Course Description

The objective of this course is to develop students’communicative competence,including listening,reading,speaking and writing abilities by way of comprehensive study of the English language.The course will emphasize all these four basic skills,as well as the strategies of foreign language learning and the awareness of cultural differences in cross-cultural communication.

Each unit is divided into 4 parts:Pre-reading Task,Text A,Text B,and Theme-related language Learning Tasks(writing strategies).

Pre-reading Tasks serves as a lead-in section,through which the students are exposed to some background information about the topic of the unit and are warmed up and brought into an active performance in language learning.The background information may be introduced by way of reading,listening,video-watching or other activities,reinforced with a short group discussion and a sum-up by the teacher.

II.Course Requirements

Integrated course(1-4)is compiled in a student-oriented teaching/learning concept.It consists of 8 units,each focusing on one topic area/theme.All class activities for the unit,be it reading,writing,listening or speaking,should be designed and arranged around the particular theme of that unit.

Each unit is divided into 4 parts:Pre-reading Task,Text A,Text B,and Theme-related language Learning Tasks(writing strategies).

Pre-reading Tasks serves as a lead-in section,through which the students are exposed to some background information about the topic of the unit and are warmed up and brought into an active performance in language learning.The background information may be introduced by way of reading,listening,video-watching or other activities,reinforced with a short group discussion and a sum-up by the teacher.

Text A is the focus of class teaching and learning.An introduction of the general structure and organization of the text is highly recommended to raise the students’awareness of understanding an article as a whole.The teacher may choose to spend different amount of time on the explanation of language points both in the text and in the exercises according to the students’level of English and response in class.Content Questions after Text A,if dealt with in the form of a brief oral presentation,can help(or rather force)the students to read the text carefully on the one hand and,on the other,to present the main idea orally in English either by quoting the text or in their own words.Points for Discussionoffers questions for group discussion to generalize on this topic.Cloze A inComprehensive Exercises is sort of an abstract of the Text A and is a very good exercise for the students to learn the key words and phrases in context.

Students should teach themselves Text B with the help of the exercises after the text.Text B will also be covered in the final exam.

Essay writing in Theme-related Language Learning Tasks introduces some writing skills and techniques and the teacher should help and check the students’command of these techniques by ways that the teacher sees fit for the class.Other exercises in this part,usually in the form of oral practice,help wind up the unit by having the students to think and talk about the theme in a larger sense.Students’command of the Integrated Course will be assessed in the Final Exam in the 19^th week,and takes up 40%of the final score.

Students should teach themselves Listening and Speaking Course,Reading Course and Fast Reading out of class.The teacher may choose some relevant materials in the Listening and Speaking book or/and the Fast Reading book to supplement in-class teaching of the Integrated Course.The Listening and Speaking Course,Reading Course and Fast Reading will be covered in the Comprehensive Exam in the 16^th week and takes up 30%of the final score.

The teacher should by all means encourage EVERY student to participate in class activities and keep written records of their performance and participation in theTeacher’s Notebook,which is to be handed back in to be checked by the dean at the end of each semester.Students’classroom performance should include aspects like assignments,preparation,contributions to class activities,attentiveness and class participation,and accounts for 20%of their final score.The teachers should be accountable to the score they give for this part.

Autonomous learning takes up 10%of the final score.Students are required to log on to the campus intranet and do their autonomous learning using the Autonomous Learning and Monitoring System provided by the department.Scores will be automatically recorded by the computer and available to the teacher by the end of the semester.

Oral examination will be in the 17^th and 18^th week.Teachers are on their own to decide the form and content of the test as they see fit for the class.Oral examination should be deemed as an encouragement to and assessment and manifestation of the result of the students’oral practices throughout the semester.It accounts for 20%of the final score.

III.Policies

Grading:(on 100-point scale)

Class attendance and performance:20%

Oral exam:20%;Final exam:50%;Autonomous learning:10%

Make-ups or extensions for a missed deadline will only be given in cases of documented serious illness or other valid,non-frivolous excuses such as documented participation in official University sports or academic/service events.

An attendance measurement will be calculated equal to the percentage of total class time attended.The course grade may not exceed that percentage(i.e.if a student attended only 75%of the total class time,the course grade may not be higher than 75 or C).Notice also that,at the discretion of the instructor,any student missing more than 30%of the total class time will not be allowed to take the final test and therefore will fail the course.

All students are supposed to observe the University Guidelines on student conduct as described in Sun Yet-sen University’s Student Handbook,especially the section dealing with problems of plagiarism,cheating,etc.

NOTE:

1.This policy should be announced to the students on the first day of class.

2.Because of limited class hours,teachers don’t have to teache all the units in the textbook.