ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Course code:

A004819

Academic Year of enrolment:

2020/2021

Academic Year of provision:

2020/2021

Type of Course:

Related/Supplementary

Degree:

Bachelor's Degree Programme in BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Location:

MANTOVA

Disciplinary Sector:

English Language and Translation

Language:

Italian

Grouping type:

Credits:

Programme Year:

Professor and Collaborators:

VIVALDINI LUCY Professor

REGGI VALERIA Collaborator

Cycle:

First four months

Hours of classroom activity:

Hours of individual study:

165

Students will be given an ‘entry test’ during the first week to demonstrate that they are at least at a A2 level. In case they are not, they will be invited to attend the dedicated make-up tutorship course that will take place in the September-October period in distance learning modality.

Educational Goals

The course provides the necessary methodological tools to:
1. acquire the strategies, techniques and knowledge of the specificities of business communication and academic English in economic and financial domains at a B2 level (CEFR);
2. be capable of applying the skills above to comprehend and produce texts in the field of economic and academic language;
3. be able to communicate about general topics at a B2 level;
4. be capable of sustaining an oral debate concerning basic economic matters at a B2 level.
COMPREHENSION KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
At the end of the course, students will acquire the lexical and linguistic-communicative bases (at a B2 level) that are necessary to comprehend oral and written general and academic texts related to the following topics: ‘Organisation, Brands, Job Hunting, Business Strategy, Logistics, Entrepreneurs, Working Abroad, Leadership’.

APPLICATION OF NOTIONS AND COMPREHENSION SKILLS
At the end of the course, students will be informed of and capable of interpreting oral and written general and academic texts (at a B2 level) related to the following topics: ‘Organisation, Brands, Job Hunting, Business Strategy, Logistics, Entrepreneurs, Working Abroad, Leadership’. They will also be capable of applying such knowledge to produce oral and written texts concerning business communication at a B2 level.
INDEPENDENT JUDGEMENT
At the end of the course, students will be able to identify the most appropriate methods to analyse texts in English at a B2 level about the following areas: ‘Organisation, Brands, Job Hunting, Business Strategy, Logistics, Entrepreneurs, Working Abroad, Leadership’.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
At the end of the course, students will be able to describe basic concepts in English (at a B2 level) concerning the semantic areas that have been dealt with during the course by means of written and oral texts using accurate and appropriate language.

LEARNING SKILLS
At the end of the course, students will be able to apply acquired linguistic notions and learning methodologies to general and academic contexts and contents going beyond those dealt with during the course and know how to independently analyse new topics on business and management.

Content

The course provides students with the necessary linguistic and cultural skills to effectively manage communicative strategies within the fields of business and management in English in an international context (B2 level of the CEFR).
The presented activities and notions concern both the practice of professional writing and speaking and the analysis of written and spoken texts that are typical of intercultural communication in the field of business.

Extended Syllabus

Business Partner B1+
UNITS: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
Details on main topics:
1. Organisation: roles and responsibilities, future forms, small talk and meetings
2. Brands: marketing and brands, connectors, presentations
3. Job Hunting: job applications and cover letters, indirect questions, job interviews
4. Business Strategy: business strategy collocations and word building, modal verbs, problem solving
5. Logistics: logistics and word building, passive, negotiations
6. Entrepreneurs: running and starting a business, reported speech, presenting visual data
7. Working Abroad: adjectives, prefixes, opposites, past tenses, conversation
8. Leadership: leadership, relative clauses, leading and managing team meetings

Oxford Academic Vocabulary Practice B2-C1
UNITS: 1, 3, 5, 7, 12, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 37, 43, 44.
Details on main topics:
1. University study
3. Academic disciplines 2
5. Describing visual data
7. Research in social sciences
12. Trends
16. Quantity
19. Problem and solution
20. Evidence
21. Theory and concepts
22. Critical thinking
37. Maths and statistics
43. Business
44.Economics and finance

Market Leader: Working Across Cultures

1. Overcoming cultural barriers
2. Communicating across cultures
6. The importance of understanding the local culture
7. Why international mergers often fail
9. Rescuing a merger that’s going wrong
10. International assignments
13. Working in virtual teams
14. A mixed cultural workforce
15. Working in international project groups
16. Getting an international outlook
17. Improving the skills of international leaders

Recommended Bibliography

I. Dubicka, M. O’Keeffe, B. Dignen, M. Hogan, L. Wright, Business Partner B1+, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, 2018 (ISBN: 978-1292233550, Coursebook) (testo di base del corso per esame scritto)
J. Moore, Oxford Academic Vocabulary Practice Upper Intermediate B2-C1, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2017 (ISBN: 978-0194000918, Coursebook) (testo di base del corso per esame scritto)
A. Pilbeam, Market Leader: Working Across Cultures, Pearson Longman, Harlow, 2010 (ISBN: 978-1408220030) (testo per esame orale)

Methods of Provision

Conventional

Teaching Methods

Face-to-face lessons (60 hours, blended modality) and tutorships (remote modality, to reinforce written and oral communication skills). The face-to-face lessons provide students with the necessary tools to analyse and discuss oral and written texts concerning the main areas of business communication and academic English, as well as ones that are fundamentals for the mastery of linguistic-communicative and pragmatic-linguistic skills that are required to understand and produce texts in English at a B2 level.
The tutorships will be divided into 20 hours ‘packages’ and students will be divided into small practice groups. Tutorships will be dedicated to:
1) practicing written comprehension and production skills (grammar revision and focus on specific lexis),
2)oral comprehension and production (revision of English phonetics, prosody, rhythm and focus on techniques for the comprehension, synthesis and relaboration of texts).

The aim of the tutorships is to develop and reinforce students’ ability to independently comprehend and produce written and oral texts starting from a given prompt/starting point. Moreover, they teach the necessary methods to acquire mastery over professional communication in the business and academic fields.

Assessment Methods

The final exam consists in a written and an oral exam. To access the oral exam, it is mandatory to have passed the written test with a score of at least 18/30.
- The written exam aims at assessing students’ written comprehension/production (B2 level) through cloze tests and true/false, multiple choice and close ended questions.
- The oral exam, based on an interview with a member of the exam board (the professor(s) in charge of the course and other lecturers) starting from the articles and topics of the reference text, has the intent of testing oral comprehension (B2 level) improving students’ notions and skills in analysis and judgement, as well as their presentation skills (B2 level).
The final evaluation is based on the efficiency of the implemented methods, the completion and accuracy of the answers, and the clarity of the presentation of facts, thoughts and opinion.
The final mark, expressed in thirtieths (with honours if deemed appropriate), is calculated based on the results of both exams.

Assessment:

Final Mark

Programme of Educational Activities

Start date of teaching period:

Monday, September 14, 2020

End date of teaching period:

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Other Information

Supplementary online material will be provided via website for students who have a poor background in English (lower than B1). In such cases, further tutorial support may be provided on request.

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