ENGLISH LANGUAGE - VA
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
An entry B1 level is expected, which is deemed acquired upon leaving secondary school.
The review of core structures (on the course and of the student's own accord) will still enable every student to develop the above skills.
Any previous attendance of specialist English courses with a social and health curriculum may assist, as well as any past attendance of General English or ESL / EFL certification courses.
Official assessment is carried out in the final written exam. The exam lasts 2 hours and includes:
- Reading Comprehension (15 marks); one longer text, 2 short ones (ESP reading).
- Writing a Short Answer (5 marks); formulation of a short answer to an industry-specific question
- Use of English (15 marks); sentence completion, sentence transformation, word formation, multiple choice.
The mark is on a 30-point scale, with passing grade at 18. While only the title 'idoneo' will be recorded on students' exam records, students may ask to see their exam papers and their score out of 30.
More details on final test contents will be laid out towards the end of the course. Texts and sentences contained in the exam paper fully reflect the (general and specialist) contents covered in the course.
The course targets understanding and communication skills pertaining to the following CEF levels:
• Reading Comprehension (ESP English for nursing): B2
• Writing (compose a short answer): B1 +
• Use of English (Grammar, Syntax, Vocabulary): B1 +
• Listening: B1 + (while oral and aural skills are not tested, students are encouraged to give these a high profile during and after the course, as a key component of L2 training). Listening comprehension and the pronunciation of scientific prefixes / suffixes are developed and assessed in progress.
Upon completing the course, the student:
• has developed / revised pre-intermediate to intermediate structural foundations (syntax, collocations, discourse markers)
• has built lexical skills relevant for the industry (general terminology in use for nurses in the Anglosphere, key medical / health terms, relevant Italian-English false friends)
• starting from such structural and lexical foundations, understands the focal points of common English texts (intermediate level) covering her / his specialization, abstracts + introductions of academic articles from the "British Journal of Nursing", as well as real-world texts produced for the industry (report, assessment)
• can handle future Scientific English academic programmes with greater competence
• can briefly describe the nursing profession, the facilities in which she/he works and their typical career training programme
• can produce a short answer to a question on covered topics, using some basic ESP vocabulary
• can detect the logical/cohesive steps of a scientific contribution (contrast, addition, example, explanation, conclusion, etc.) by identifying key discourse markers (or linkers); she/he knows how to use linkers correctly in a phrasal co-text
• (listening); can understand the essential points of a presentation on a familiar specialist topic
• is aware of accreditation opportunities in the UK and other English-speaking countries (e.g. specific language exams like OET Nursing)
The course unfolds through 8 short Learning Units (LUs) based on the following content cores:
Relating to colleagues and patients
Nursing assessments
The Patient Ward
Food and measurements
The body and movement
Medication
The hospital team
Recovery
Besides providing generic + specialized lexical foundations, all of the texts in each LU prompt some discussion on key A2 to B1 + (elementary to intermediate) grammar items, which are developed in their functional-communicative perspective (eg. talking about general truths with the Present Simple, describing ongoing scenarios with the Present Continuous, planning and designing with Future forms, connecting discourse with linkers, etc).
English for Nursing - Level 1 (R. Wright - B. Cagnol). Publisher: Pearson
Book + CD-ROM + online mp3 audio ISBN : 978 1 4082 6993 0
This is required for the course. Part of the homework tasks (language, vocabulary and audio / video) are from the coursebook, which is covered in its key sections (with allowances due to course duration); the other parts (detailed in the classroom or on Teams) are to be completed independently. It will be clearly specified which parts / sections / pages of the coursebook are tested.
Other books (mentioned in the course presentation slides) are recommended for further individual study and / or as preparation for OET Nursing exam. Notably:
Recommended further study resources (optional, recommended)
The Cambridge Guide to OET Nursing (C. Leyshon, G. Khaira, V. Allum) – CUP (Cambridge University Press)
Coursebook + multimedia online resources ISBN: 9781108881647
Individual preparation for OET Nursing (UK exam of English for nurses).
- Oxford Medical Dictionary APP (official Oxford English app with definitions and pronunciation tool for medical and health terms). The two App links (for Android or Ios) are shown in the introductory presentation slides.
The course provides for mixed-modality synchronous classes (both in presence – reservation needed - and remotely on the Teams platform), amounting to 30 hours allocated as per calendar.
Media and Materials
All the material below is regularly uploaded onto the Teams platform, before or after class depending on lesson plans. All of the uploaded and/or distributed items form an integral part of the course and are exam material - including the lexical items emphasized as highly relevant in the Reading sections.
• Ppoint or Mentimeter presentations discussed in the classroom. Slides include links to resources (lexical, syntactic, phonetic, cultural and professional practice) deemed essential for 'English for nursing' undergraduate training programmes
• abstract + introduction of specialized academic articles (3), selected from the British Journal of Nursing portal
• worksheets and mind maps (3)
• a vocabulary builder, which students fill in independently to create their own glossary
• report files of the online tests (taken on Socrative), with results and scores, to be used as study material for the 'Use of English' component
Learning support materials
• audio / video practice from the recommended textbook and from other multimedia resources, mainly focused on case studies and on caregiving best practices
• links to multimedia resources deemed useful for training
Methods / Approach:
As with any intensive course, flipped learning will be a frequent approach.
Each lesson revolves around an inductive reading session, i.e. a teacher's card or Unit reading, which students will read at home, and from which relevant vocabulary and structures are then excerpted and discussed, followed by practice, audio or video content, Q&A sessions, and, when viable, oral interaction or role-playing.
Tasks and additional material are assigned on Teams. The e-learning platform (Teams) acts as a follow-up after classroom work, and as a networking channel for further queries and insight.
Students’ attitudes should aim at building long-term proficiency and genuine reception-communication skills, to be capitalized on with a view to enriching their academic / career programs; learners are encouraged to avoid a purely theoretical approach to language and content.
Students can get in touch via virtual office hours on Teams (or through the college email addressmary.bo@uninsubria.it ) for queries, guidance and advice.
Students are advised to activate their Teams notifications, and to regularly consult their Teams classroom for notices, materials and assignments.