New revised syllabus 2014 for 1st Year Second Semester

1st Year Second Semester

EN 1201: Advanced Reading Skills & Vocabulary Development II

1). Reading skills: previewing, predicting& understanding complex sentences

·         Make predictions based on the title, sub-titles, students’ knowledge of the topic, the linguistic context, non-linguistic context such as diagrams, graphs, pictures, maps etc.

·         Encourage to predict before reading, while reading, and after reading (a useful skill to increase students’ reading speed and enhance their comprehension of the text).

Understanding complex sentences

·         Focus: practice in seeing how long sentences which have a complicated style, (e.g. a main clause and a number of subordinate clauses) can be simplified

·         Types of activities:

-   Look at the following sentences and punctuate them. Read them to another student, pausing in suitable places. Then answer the questions (wh-questions  on each sentence)

-   Identify the clauses and phrases in a complex sentence.

2). Making inferences - understanding indirectlystated ideas and information

·         Students are required to interpret or ‘read between the lines’ in order to make inferences. It involves students combining their literal understanding of the text with their personal knowledge and intuitions.

·         Types of activities: what do you think? e.g. What kind of person wrote this article? Why do you think so? What evidence is there in the passage for the following statements?

3). Understanding the organization of the text

·         Focus: practice in recognizing how sentences are joined together to make paragraphs, how paragraphs form the passage, and how this organization is signified.

·         Types of activities:

-   In the passage, a number of sentences are missing. Read it through and decide where the sentences given below should go.

-   The following sentences are taken from 4 brochures of exhibitions. Separate the 4 texts and match them with the brochure titles.

·         Discuss common organizational patterns providing sample texts. e.g. cause-effect, sequence of events,  describing a process, analogy and contrast, classification, argument and logical organization etc.

·         Types of activities:

-   Identify textual connectors in different texts, e.g. cause (e.g. was caused by) effect (e.g. led to)

-   Sequencing expressions: at first, then, as soon as, when, an hour later

4). Homonyms: homographs and homophones

·         Homographs: words written in the same way, but have different meanings and may be pronounced differently.

e.g.   I live in Kandy.

Your favourite star is performing live on TV tonight (write the two words in phonetic script and show the difference in pronunciation)

·         Homophones: words with the same pronunciation but with a different spelling and pronunciation

e.g.   Read this aloud.

         I allowed him to go out.

         Come here, I can’t hear you.

·         Activities:    

·         write the homophones of these words and use them in sentences

There, red, been, sail, by, etc.

Write the words according to the vowel sound. e.g. / u: /. = two

5). Compound words: compound adjectives

·         Compound adjective has two parts. The second part is often a present or past participle

·         Focus: a large number describe personal appearance (broad-shouldered). Others describe person’s character. (good-natured, warm-hearted)

There is another group which has a preposition in the second part. (worn-out shoes)

There are other useful compound adjectives such as: air-conditioned, time-consuming

·         Types of activities

-   Write as many first parts as possible for the following:  - minded,

-   Describe yourself and your classmates using compound adjectives.

6). Foreign words in English (British & American words)

·         Focus: to be familiar with different varieties of English, British, American, Indian,

British English words ending in -our, -re and –ise, usually end in -or, -er and –ize in American English. Students find examples. Check answers in a dictionary.

·         Read a few American stories/poems/ magazines. List common American English words and their British English equivalents.

e.g. sidewalk- pavement, elevator-lift, apartment- flat.

7). Words related to worldwide problems

·         Focus: becoming familiar with the words connected with disasters/tragedies, verbs connected with these words and words for people involved in disasters

·         Types of activities:

-   Brainstorm round the words, disasters/tragedies. List the words such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, explosions, volcanoes, epidemics.

Finding the meaning and writing them

-   Look for the verbs associated with these words and make sentences.

e.g. A volcano has erupted in Indonesia. Hundreds are feared dead.

-   Look for words for people involved in disasters/tragedies

e.g. The explosion /typhoon/ flood resulted in 300 casualties (dead and injured)

EN 1202: Effective Communication Skills II

Interaction in ‘service’: Jobinterviews, business transactions

·         Focus: Strategies for opening and closing conversations, how to use a neutral

·         Style of speaking-polite and clear speech

·         Procedure: job interviews –provide a model. Get students to read it and practice

·         With a partner. Assign different interview situations for different groups. Students prepare the interviews and practise them.

           

Office talk: over the phone, face-to-face

·         Focus: how to provide information, manage interaction, negotiate meaning

·         Types of activities:

-   Read the advertisement for a product and provide information to the purchasing officer of the company

-   Place a catalogue order, take an order and fill out the order form

e.g. your partner is a sales person. Look at the catalogue page, select two items you want to buy and give your order. Make sure your partner takes down the order correctly by confirming the information.

Conducting and participating in meetings

·         Preparing for the meeting; selecting the office-bearers, writing the agenda, minutes

·         Practicing appropriate strategies for opening and closing

·         Conducting the meeting with whole-class participation

Planning, organizing and participating in social situations

·         Focus: how to use conversation for both transactional and interactional purposes, in different social settings and for different social encounters.

·         Types of activities: plan, organize and participate in a variety entertainment, ‘shramadana’ campaign, picnic etc.

Interviewing different people

·         Focus: strategies for managing turn-taking in conversation, how to use a casual style of speaking and a neutral or more formal style.

·         Taking notes, preparing reports/articles and presenting them.

·         Types of activities:

-   Interviewing a lottery winner/a tourist on his impressions of the country/a housewife about the cost of living/a director of a corporation etc.

-   Simulation: journalists from different media interview Miss. Sri Lanka

Planning and organizing debates and participating in them

·         Focus: how to initiate and continue a talk on a topic, how to present counter-arguments

·         Procedure:  3 groups- a) proponents b) opponents c) judges

Stages:

-   All 3 groups pre – debate preparation

-   Groups a and b-opening arguments

-   Groups a and b - counter arguments

-   Group c - announce results with comments

-   Write an essay balancing the views of both sides

 EN 1203: Listening in English II

Transfer information

·         Listen to the tape/ teacher and fill in the chart.

·         Types of activities:  tracing the route on a map, completing tables/ charts/forms

Retaining relevant points: note taking

·         Focus: identifying relevant points-rejecting irrelevant information

·         Types of activities: listen to a short text (speech/dialogue) and take down important points. Writing and speaking tasks based on them

Telephone conversations

·         Focus: recognize discourse marks/cohesive devices, understanding different intonation patterns and use of stress which give clues to meaning and social setting.

·         Types of activities:

-   Listening to interactional (social) and transactional (obtain and provide information) conversations and responding to tasks based on them

-   Taking part in telephone conversations and responding appropriately.

Using songs for listening

Provide short lessons on vocabulary and grammar followed with different listening activities; e.g. Fill-in-the-blank task with the past tense verbs they hear.

Problem solving tasks

Students hear all the information relevant to a particular problem and then set themselves to find solutions

Story – based techniques

·         Activities: Listen and expand the outline-students listen and write the story while the teacher describes expanding the story as instructed.

e.g.   The Unicorn

The husband woke up and looked out of the window.(describe the husband)

He saw a unicorn eating a lily in the garden.(describe the garden) and so on…..

 Ref. Morgan John and Rinvoluori 1990,’Once upon a time’

·         Types of texts: The best sort of story for this task is a one that can be easily reduced to 5 or 6 sentences. It should be unfamiliar to students.

EN 1204: Language Structure, Linguistics & Usage

Verbs & verb phrase

·         Types of verbs: lexical, auxiliary-primary and modal, regular, irregular, transitive, intransitive, stative, dynamic, finite, non-finite

·         Verb forms: base, -s form, past, -ing  form, -ed participle

·         Activities to be familiar with verb forms

·         The structure of the verb phrase

·         Tense, aspect, voice, modality

• Label the tense, aspect and voice of the verb phrases.

e.g. was teaching-past tense, progressive aspect, active voice

Active and passive voice

·         Construction-be+ past participle

·         Negative and question forms

·         Passive sentences with and without ‘by’. –when we want to say who or what was responsible for the action we use ‘by’.

We were stopped by the police.

The visitors were driven to the airport.

Adjectives

·         Characteristics of adjectives

·         Functions of adjectives:-

-   Attributive, predicative functions

-   As the head of the noun phrase

·         Position of adjectives

·         Adjective phrases

                                                                                                           

Adverbs and adverbials

·         Difference between adverbs and adverbials: adverb-word class, adverbial- a clause element

·         Functions of adverbs

·         Adverbials: adverbs (quickly), prepositional phrases (with a pencil), noun phrases (this morning)

·         Semantic classes of adverbials: adverbials of manner/time/ place.

·         Syntactic classes of adverbials: adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts

Linguistics

Varieties of language

• Formal & informal language
• Spoken & written language
• Dialects-  Social & regional
• Registers
• Idiolects

Varieties of English

• British English ( RP)
• American English
• Standard Sri Lankan English

           

Supra segmental features

• Stress- syllables & word stress, sentence stress
• Intonation- Falling, rising, rising- falling, falling- rising.

                                   

Aspects of connected speech

• Linking- C+C, C+V, V+V, intrusion
• Assimilation- Progressive, Regressive
• Elision                                                 

Reduced & full forms (strong & weak forms)

EN: 1205 American & British Literature - 1208

Poetry

Sylvia Plath                             -Mirror, Morning Song

T.S Eliot                                  -Morning at the Window

Robert Frost                            - Mending Wall / Stopping by Woods in a snowy                                                                  Evening          

H.W. Longfellow                    - Slave’s Dream

Shakespeare                            - My Mistress’ Eyes                                                   

William Blake                         - Chimney Sweepers 1 / 2

John Keats                              - Ode to Grecian Urn

Wilfred Owen             - DulceEt Decorum Est

Rupert Brooke                        - Soldier

Short story

‘The old man at the Bridge’ by Ernest Hemmingway

‘The Dead’ by James Joyce

Drama

‘King Lear’ or ‘Tempest’ by Shakespeare

EN 1206: Practical and Professional Writing II

Linking ideas: clauses and phrases

·         Activities: Provide sentences with linking words such as:  because, so, but, although, in spite of, otherwise, except that, apart from. Get them to underline the linking words. Discuss the function of linking words

·         Provide more activities.      

-   Join the ideas in the two columns using linking words.

-   Fill in the blanks.

(Ref: Language in Use: Intermediate, Workbook. Page 59)

Develop paragraphs: organizing ideas at inter-paragraph level

·         Generate ideas using different techniques: brain storming, group/class discussions, reading, illustrations

·         Guidelines on organization: beginning, developmental Pattern-content (two or three paragraphs), ending, register, key words

·         Writing drafts, conference with the teacher, revising

Informative writing

·         Text types:  prospectuses, description of places/people

·         Focus: conveying information clearly. Consider what the reader wants to know and include relevant details only.

·         Present materials clearly, appropriate layout, illustrations and organization

Practical writing

·         Text types: CV writing, job applications and covering letters

·         Focus on particulars found in an application form, CV format is different from application form

Letter writing- business letters

·         Text Types: letters of complaints, letters of orders, banking correspondence

·         Focus: use formal and impersonal language

Imaginative writing

·         Text types: poetry, short stories, play lets

·         Short stories

-   Creative use of language. Provide questions/pictures to stimulate writing.

-   Provide the beginning; An old man sat on a bench in the park watching children           playing…

-   Provide the ending: …I told you it was a joke

-   Supply captions or titles as starting points. These can be taken from newspapers. e.g. Boy saved from drowning.

-   Imaginary situations: If I were a parent…

·         Poetry

E.g. five-line poem (cinquain) in which the lines are arranged by word/syllable.

Line 1: title                                    2 syllables or 1word

Line 2: description of the title      4 syllables or 3words

Line 3: action bout the title           6 syllables or 3 words

Line 4: feeling about the title        8 syllables or 4 words

Line 5: synonym for the title        2 syllables or 1 word

Syllable cinquain                           word cinquain

Water                                            Kittens

Frothy, bubbling                           Soft, cuddly

Tumbling, twisting, turning          Playing, purring, pouncing

Roaring like a fierce lioness          Giving joy and happiness

River                                             Babies

·         Playlets

-   Text types: write dialogues appropriate to specific situations on different themes and act them out (group tasks)

-   Write and act out scripts for well-known tales, e.g. folk stories

Persuasive and argumentative writing

·         Writing skills: giving reasons: e.g. why do people gamble/become vegetarians/keep pets/enjoy watching violet films? (Ref: Language in Use: Upper-Intermediate. Classroom Book.Page40, 50)

·         Text types

-   Brochures, leaflets, advertisements- on presenting a case influencing the reader. E.g. Imagine a local radio station has asked you to write a one-minute commercial advertising a new product.

EN 1207: CALL & Study Skills I1

1.       Presentation skills

·         The importance of preparation:

·         Points to consider: objectives of the presentation, audience, manner, time, length, method, content, structure, notes, rehearsal

·         Se of equipment: OHP, whiteboard, flipchart, computer, handouts,

·         Delivering a presentation: beginning, rapport, content, body  language, audience, cultural considerations, voice quality

·         Language: simplicity, clarity, useful expressions that can be used to signpost the various parts of the presentation,

·         Language for each function: introduction, welcome your audience, introduce subject, outline the structure, give instruction about questions, conclusion.

·         Presentation itself

·         Evaluation of presentation-provide an evaluation form

2.       Self-evaluation techniques

·         Focus: Help students develop the characteristics of the’ good language learner’ which involve the ability to assess their own performance.

·         Type of activities: formats for learner evaluation e.g. the following activity requires learners to reflect on what has been learned over a period of time and express it as marks out of 10.

Think about your progress this month. Give yourself a mark out of 10 for these areas; Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing, Pronunciation, Grammar, Vocabulary

Ref - Harris.M and P.McCann.(1994) Assessment. Oxford: Heinemann.

3.       Collaborative projects

·         Carry out small-scale research projects using available data with 2-4 students to a terminal. Prepare handouts, guide students to relevant data in   internet and web-sites.

·         Organize different information, present them to the rest of the class and write a report.

4.       Teaching with websites

·         Focus: equip students with basic skills needed for internet searching on their own and assess the suitability of the website for the intended purpose, e.g. learn to search with Google more effectively.

·         Procedure: Prepare handouts giving specific guidance as to the topic and particular aspects they should look for. Reporting of findings to the class.

  

5.       Working with video

Introduce the idea of using short video clips from websites for creative speaking and writing tasks.