B1+-B2 Speaking skills in English: topic-based practice for oral competence and confidence in academic settings

Essentiels

Les inscriptions ouvrent deux semaines avant le début du semestre universitaire.

Date·s

Mercredi 13:15 - 15:00 MIS 10, salle 1.16

Lieu Université de Fribourg, Centre de langues
Durée

17.02.2025 - 30.05.2025

Frais

GRATUIT pour étudiant·e·s et personnel Unifr ; CHF 500.– par semestre pour les membres des institutions partenaires

Type Séminaire / Cours
Langue·s Anglais
Code I04.00108-SP25
Public-cible

Ce cours s'adresse aux personnes dont le niveau correspond au niveau B1 ou B2 du Cadre européen commun de référence pour les langues. Merci de vous inscrire uniquement si ce cours correspond à votre niveau. Les participant·e·s de nos institutions partenaires et les collaborateur·trice·s Unifr peuvent nous contacter pour faire un test de placement si elles/ils ne sont pas sûr·e·s de leur niveau. Les étudiant·e·s Unifr sont automatiquement redirigé·e·s vers le test de placement lors de l'inscription aux cours sur MyUnifr.

Contenu

Target audience
This course is open to learners of English at intermediate levels, from B1+ upwards. This level means that you have become independent and can already speak with some confidence on familiar matters; exchange, check and confirm information orally or explain why something is a problem; and that you can express your thoughts on more abstract or cultural topics such as books, films or music but you would like to improve comprehension of detail, expand your manner of expression, fill vocabulary gaps, and go beyond your current routine activities in English.

Course contents and teaching method

This course is for you if you want to have more complex conversations, e.g. giving fuller answers to questions; or help a discussion along by asking your own; keep going to produce comprehensible speech even if you have to pause and repair while planning your next few words; repeat a string of words back or rephrase what you heard to check you have understood; expand your speaking skills for less routine purposes and familiar settings; to learn something new in and through English, also by initiating an exchange and inviting others to take part.

There will be plenty of opportunities to talk and practise orally but also to share and develop your thinking about topics. Participating in spontaneous as well as structured or prepared speaking activities enables you to gain confidence as well as competence in speaking and to develop various oral as well as study skills. The content of the course will be organized around topics that the teacher suggests and that you can suggest. There will be authentic as well as course-book derived materials to listen to, read aloud, ask questions about, or activities to puzzle out together or quiz each other with; in pairs, small groups or in whole class exchanges. There will be a focus on how different purposes and audiences influence the way people speak at university.

Workload and evaluation
Attend regularly, participate actively in classroom activities, speak English aloud in class; join individual, pair and group work. Use self-study resources. No formal assessment, no credits.

Materials
A mix of didactic and authentic materials and tasks and self-study resources (e.g. dictionaries)

Objectifs

New linguistic experiences for expanding your oral repertoire in English and connecting familiar and new roles with speaking English to communicate spontaneously and academically. The course encourages you to become a more autonomous communicator, also by looking up information such as word meanings in a good monolingual learner’s dictionary instead of depending on machine translation.

Prérequis

Les conditions générales de participation aux cours du Centre de langues s'appliquent.

Direction

Schaller-Schwaner Iris

Remarques sur l'inscription

Speaking in academic settings can mean speaking to learn as well as learning to speak in new ways. You may have to speak more slowly when you explain something to another person or more loudly and fluently to demonstrate that you know enough about a topic or issue. You will have to be clear in your English pronunciation as well as in your explanations and examples. You may have to take notes when listening even when you are not sure what you heard, and you may want to listen to yourself to monitor and self-correct and improve. Oral fluency and accuracy will also require building up an active academic vocabulary, thus studying words explicitly and using new ones. In order to speak in formal settings such as oral presentations, you also have to prepare what to say, how to say it and rehearse saying it so that you don’t have to read your whole presentation out loud without eye contact.