Tentative Course Syllabus Course: Freshman English (Intermediate Level) Course No.: FTD0A
Instructor: Dr. Adeline Teo
Office: SF 829 Office phone: (02) 2905-3809 E-mail: adelineteo2001@yahoo.com
Office Hours: Tuesday 12:10 - 12:50 Wednesday 12:10 - 13:50 Classroom:
Dates: Every Friday 10:10 -12:00 Objectives:
The objectives of this course are to help promote students’ knowledge in vocabulary, grammar, American culture, commonly used adverbial phrases in American English, as well as their skills in reading strategies, listening comprehension, and oral fluency.
Students will participate in activities such as learning English through music, vocabulary building, guided reading, independent reading, sentence analysis, sentence/paragraph writing, conversation practice, and group presentation.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is forbidden. You must obey the principles of academic integrity. If you quote or refer to another person’s work, please remember to give credit to the author(s).
A plagiarized product will result in a 0% of your assignment.
Attendance and Punctuality
Please try your best not to miss any classes and be on time. If you are or will be absent for medical or personal reasons, please inform me in advance and show permission slips or proofs (e.g. medical excuse from your doctor). According to the university regulation, more than two unexcused absences or six excused absences will result in your failing in this course.
Scoring Percentages:
1. In-class Quiz: 20%
2. Group Presentation Project: 40% (see p. 3 and p. 4 in the course syllabus for details)
3. Mid-term Exam: Reading comprehension & vocabulary: 15%
(November 11)
4. Final Exam: Reading comprehension & vocabulary: 15%
(January 13)
5. Attendance & Participation: 10%
Textbooks:
1. Weaving It Together 3 (WIT3): Textbooks can be purchased and picked up at Fu Jen Bookstore during the first week of school
Activities:
1. Listening Activities (cloze, vocabulary, group discussion) 20 mins.
2. WIT3 (Textbook) 40 mins
3. Group Presentation Project 40 mins.
Assignment for every student before each class :
*** For every session, make sure that you read before you come to class the reading passage your classmates will present in their group presentation. It will help you understand the presentation more easily.
Be aware that each student will be given an in-class quiz on the content of the group presentation each week.
Bonus Points
Students will be assigned to work in groups throughout the semester. Each group will set up an appointment to meet with the course’s TA outside of class time once a semester. Each meeting is 1 hour. The purpose of the meeting is for the TA to help the students in the group to prepare for their group presentation project. Students who show up for the meeting will receive an extra 10 points for their grade in the group presentation project. Those who are absent will not receive any bonus point. To receive the 10 bonus point, each student will have to meet the TA for the entire 1 hour.
Group Presentation Project Dates and Assigned Reading Passages
(Use the chart below to refer to the dates of your group presentation and the reading assignments assigned to your group)
Dates & time of class sessions: every Friday from 10:10 am to 12:00 noon
Dates Group No. Teacher's Assigned Handouts Booklet (TAHB) page number(s)
9/30/2011 1 Age and Youth (p. 3 – p. 5)
10/7/2011 2 Behavior: Animals That Kill Their Young (p. 6- p.7) 10/14/201
1 3 Addictions (p. 8)
10/21/201
1 4 Women Rulers (p. 9)
10/28/201
1 5 Switching roles (p. 10- p.12) - long
11/4/2011 6 Blog (p. 13)
11/18/201 7 Memory (p. 14)
1
11/25/201
1 8 How Global Warming Affects Your Health (p.15-p.16) 12/2/2011 9 Females vs Males Differences (p. 17)
12/9/2011 10 Study: Babies Who Gesture Learn Words Sooner (p.18-19) 12/16/201
1 11 Soda Drinks (p. 20)
12/23/201
1 12 The Happiness Effect (p. 21-p.23) - long 12/30/201
1 13 Growing up Online (p. 24)
1/6/2012 14 College for all? Experts say not necessarily (p. 25 – p. 28) long
*** On these dates classes will be held at Language Lab _____________
Group Presentation Project
*Each week, ONE group does a Group Presentation on a reading passage assigned by the instructor.
*Students work in groups of 3 or 4, total 13 or 14 groups in 13 sessions per semester.
Group Project: To get ready for this project, you and your group members will read a passage from the Teacher's Assigned Handouts Booklet (TAHB) assigned by the instructor prior to your assigned group project date. You and your group members need to read the passage and prepare for your group project before you come to class on your assigned group project date. Each group will set up an appointment in advance to meet with the course’s TA outside of class time once a semester. Each meeting is 1 hour. The purpose of the meeting is for the TA to help the students in the group to prepare for their group presentation project. Students who show up for the meeting will receive an extra 10 points for their grade in the group presentation project. Those who are absent will not receive any bonus point. To receive the 10 bonus point, each student will have to meet the TA for the entire 1 hour.
A. Presentation
a. Provide a summary of the reading passage in PowerPoint. (Main idea + supporting ideas)
b. Choose 5 to 7 vocabulary words used in the sentences. What do the words mean? Write each word in a new sentence to show in your presentation.
c. Choose 5 well-written sentences from the passage. Explain why you chose the sentences. Did the author express the sentences in some interesting ways?
d. You need to include your personal opinion at the end of the presentation.
Pick ONE point you agree, disagree, or you think needs more clarification from the passage and explain WHY.
B. Class discussion
a. As a group, you should come up with 5 - 7 main ideas from the passage to use for group discussion. Make sure you list all 5 - 7 main ideas in your handout and pass it out to your audience.
b. Divide the class into 3 groups. Each presenter goes to one group. Then, each presenter should go over the 5 - 7 main ideas in the handout with the group. Encourage the audience to ask
questions to help clarify any confusion in the reading passage.
C. Quiz
a. Before class, each group will create a quiz that consists of 5 multiple-choice questions. The questions should be based on the reading passage. The questions can be related to checking your audience’s reading comprehension, assessing their critical thinking skills, making predictions, finding main ideas, and drawing conclusions.
(Type the 5 quiz questions on a piece of paper, make copies for each person in class, and have them write their name, student number, and department on the quiz.)
b. Each group will give a quiz paper to each audience member. Your audience will take the quiz in class.
c. When the quiz is over, each presenter will collect the quiz papers from their group. Then, each presenter should go over the answers with the group.
(REMEMBER: You should collect the quiz before giving out the answers!) d. At the end of the class, take the quiz papers home to grade and record the
grade on the top right-hand corner of the quiz papers. Each presenter will need to submit all the quiz papers from their group to the instructor one week later in class. The audience’s quiz scores from all presentations throughout the semester will make up 20% of their final score in this course.
Rubrics for Presentation (How you are graded in your presentation) 1. Content (each part described in the course syllabus)
Main ideas + Supporting ideas
Vocabulary Words
Well-Written Sentences
Personal Opinion
2. Body language, eye contact: Add some gestures and facial expression. Do not read from your script.
3. DO NOT just read from slides: Remember the key words on your slides, and look at your audience while presenting
4. Good team work: You need to discuss with your group members ahead of time regarding
dividing your responsibilities for your presentation
dividing the class for discussion
preparing for handouts for your presentation
grading the quiz
5. Time Control (about 40 minutes.)
Song Discussion Questions
(1) What do you think the song is about?
(2) Do you like the song? Why or why not?
(3) Is this song easy or hard to understand for you? Which part is easy? Which part is difficult to understand?
(4) Do you think the singer did a good job in interpreting the song? Use examples to support your view.
(5) Is there anything special about this song that is different from other songs you know of?
(6) What are the new words or new phrases you learned from this song?
(7) If you are given an opportunity to sing this song to an audience, when or where will you perform it so that the song will fit the situation well?
(8) If you are to change the lyrics to this
song, what changes would you make,
and explain why you would make those
changes?
Conversation Presentation Sheet
Based on your interaction with your partner, what can you conclude?
1. We both agree that: ___________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
2. We disagree that: _______________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
3. From our conversation today, we learned that __________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. What are the other things we say about this topic that are not on the list:
______________________________________________________________
