Enable LIN-OC III Year undergraduates to achieve a level in listening and speaking skills as required by the CEFR C1 band.

C1  Proficient User

Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

 Listening

I can understand extended speech even when it is not clearly structured and when relationships are only implied and not signalled explicitly. I can understand television programmes and films without too much effort.

Spoken Interaction

I can express myself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. I can use language flexibly and effectively for social and professional purposes. I can formulate ideas and opinions with precision and relate my contribution skilfully to those of other speakers.

Spoken Production

I can present clear, detailed descriptions of complex subjects integrating sub-themes, developing particular points and rounding off with an appropriate conclusion.

Common Reference Levels: qualitative aspects of spoken language use

RANGE

Has a good command of a broad range of language allowing him/her to select a formulation to express him/ herself clearly in an appropriate style on a wide range of general, academic, professional or leisure topics without having to restrict what he/she wants to say

ACCURACY

Consistently maintains a high degree of grammatical  accuracy; errors are rare,  difficult to spot and generally corrected when they do occur.

FLUENCY

Can express him/herself  fluently and spontaneously, almost effortlessly. Only a conceptually difficult subject can hinder a natural, smooth flow of language.

INTERACTION

Can select a suitable phrase  from a readily available range of discourse functions to preface his remarks in order to get or to keep the floor and to relate his/her own contributions skilfully to those of other speakers.

COHERENCE

Can produce clear,  smoothly flowing, well structured speech, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

SPEAKING

-be able to speak with more fluency, build confident and competent English-language speaking individuals, able to move at ease in an international workplace and the general arena of modern society.

-be able to follow a fast conversation between 2 English people

-distinguish between accents

-improve knowledge of proverbs, phrasal verbs, idioms

-increase thinking and therefore ‘acting’ in English

-follow tricky listening (e.g. phone conversations , following instructions, scientific discussions, news and debates)

-be able to successfully survive an interview

-pronunciation - to be intelligible, to avoid ambiguity

-improve vocabulary

PRESENTATION SKILLS

to be able to present a topic in English orally

SPEAKING

Building awareness, acquisition and practise of language functions and lexis in situations such as:   

Interviews  /  Informal discussion – leading and managing roles contributing  /  Debating – formal and information, leading and managing, contributing   /  Review and comment   /  Q&A sessions  /   Telling an anecdote, accounts and stories  /   Presenting to small and large groups – being informative – presenting a position, a subject, an event   /  Dialogue role play 

Pronunciation:

Examination of  when and where is ‘correct’ pronunciation is important  /  Recognising different pronunciations  /   Improving your pronunciation – looking at strategies

LISTENING:

Listening skills  - for comprehension

listening for gist /   listening to ‘chunks’  /  listening for detail  /  listening  and inference  /  summarising  / transcription

APPROACH AND METHOD

Using multimedia sources we will generally find lesson material on e-learning platforms.

Students at the C1 level in English are NOT expected to purchase a textbook for the listening.

Exam simulations will be held throughout the year. Although not a regulation, it is fundamental that students come to class. Active linguistic skills such as listening and speaking require constant practice and exposure. It has been statistically proven that students who DO come to class perform better on the exams.  There is also material for self-study at the Centro Linguistico d’Ateneo on Via Budassi. You may ask the secretaries there for the listening material.

We will hold periodic exam simulations throughout the year. These are very useful experiences in which the student can see what a language exam in LIN_OC actually looks like and learn how these exams are structured. This important practice helps calm the nerves and produce better results.

It is necessary to do practice tests during the year, in order for each individual to focus on his/her weaknesses and work on improving these.

THEMES AND ACTIVITIES
The course will include some of the following themes and activities:

personal background and personal ambitions, travel, film & entertainment, sport, art, the media, environmental issues, music, education, technology.

Activities will focus on building and practising skills for listening and speaking and, incorporated in both L&S, we will look briefly at pronunciation.

Some ( out of many)  Useful and Free Websites for Listening Learning Outside the Classroom ( website and most also have app versions)

Didactic in content and style often with exercises and transcripts

•  www.breakingnewsenglish.com

•  https://www.esl-lab.com/

•  wwhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglishw.

•  ted.com

•  http://www.manythings.org/e/

•  https://www.eslvideo.com/

Topical, contemporary, news, stories, articles.

•  www.storycorp.com

•  http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks

•  https://forum.librivox.org/

•  www.bbcnews.com

•  https://edition.cnn.com/

And of course your favourite talk shows, TV series, films etc.

The teaching material prepared by the language assistant in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the language assistant specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

Course books

Students at the C1 level in English are NOT expected to purchase a textbook for the listening.