The course is intended for students of social work who are required to use English in their university studies. It is primarily designed to improve students’ skills in reading comprehension and vocabulary development. However, it also includes some short writing and speaking tasks. The course is organised around 10 topics, each of which deals with a global social issue, and comprises one or two reading texts. The reading passages are all taken from authentic sources, principally the websites of organisations that deal with social issues at an international level. Language notes are provided for each reading passage to direct students’ attention to particular issues of grammar and vocabulary that emerge from the text. The notes also supply socio-cultural information relevant to the topic under scrutiny. Each topic contains a series of exercises aimed at consolidating and expanding the sector-specific lexis for each topic. Besides specialist vocabulary, the exercises also include aspects of morphology and word formation designed to increase awareness of these features of English lexis. There are also exercises on phrasal and prepositional verbs. Structured writing exercises and a discussion topic conclude each topic. In addition to the purely linguistic purposes set out above, the course may also provide students with a greater awareness of the international perspective of their chosen profession, and the importance of English as a means to access it.
- Pasniedzējs: Ludmila Gorelkina