Topics

Contents will refer to the following academic sectors, accordingly to the typology of students: Social Sciences, Science, Engineering, Humanities.

Communicative Functions

Greeting people

Introducing people

Giving/asking for personal information

Giving/asking for information regarding one’s studies

Describing daily routines

Talking about likes and dislikes, hobbies, interests

Talking about current activities

Talking about past experiences

Expressing opinions on general topics using basic language structures

Describing and comparing cities, universities, courses

Academic Skills

Basic strategies related to the following skills which will be the focus of the OLA B1 English for basic academic issues course

Using a monolingual dictionary;

Understanding the overall content of graphs;

Taking simple notes during lessons and writing basic content words;

Reading skills: understanding the global content of a text from title and headings, finding and understanding the main idea of a text;

Listening skills: understanding the global content of a conversation, understanding the main points of a simple oral text concerning one’s field of study;

Writing skills: writing short and simple texts or messages related to general/academic issues (e.g., courses, study abroad, organizing studies).

1. Language Focus

Present simple Question forms

Wh-questions Present continuous

Present continuous for future

Past simple- regular and irregular verbs

Future forms

V +ing/infinitive Present perfect

Past Continuous

Modal verbs – can, could, would, should, will, must (have to) Conditionals: Zero, 1^st

Frequency adverbs

Countable and uncountable nouns Some and any

A lot of, much, many Relative pronouns Adjectives and adverbs

Comparatives and superlatives Prepositions of place and time Linkers (e.g.: and, but, so, because)

Lexicon

The lexicon that will be presented in class will be linked to content-oriented topics and will reflect basic technical terminology.

Autonomous Learning

Students will be introduced to basic strategies which will encourage their autonomous learning. This will have the objective of guiding them towards the ability of studying on their own. Self-study activities will be offered on the CLA website http://cla.unical.it, where material is provided to help develop linguistic skills through interactive programs, videos on current cultural issues, and music videos.   Students   can   visit   the   CLA website http://cla.unical.it (self-study area) to discover the material which has been selected for learners interested in improving their language knowledge autonomously.

Objectives

Students should become aware of the CEFR descriptors and levels and should be guided towards the achievement of the B1 Level, which will be the focus of the institutional courses. Details about the descriptors (Council of Europe 2001) for A2 and B1 are given in part 3:

General language (synthetic) descriptors 

General language (detailed) descriptors 

Academic language (synthetic) descriptors

Note: For the detailed descriptors, please, refer to the European Portfolio University of Calabria (2003- validation code 43)

CLA-OLA Foundation Module Level Test B1 level (CEFR, Council of Europe 2001, updated 2018)

Students’ progress will be measured through a computer-based Progress Test, at the end of the Foundation module. The Progress Test will be made up by a:

• Listening Task;
• Reading Task;
• Guided writing Task
• Language Focus Task.