ADVANCED ENGLISH CONVERSATION(1)

This course will focus on helping students develop their skills and confidence in conversational English. As such, the main focus of the course will be on providing students with opportunities to communicate in a variety of situations, e.g., pair and group activities. Students will have the opportunity to discuss a broad range of topics, give a variety of different presentations, and enhance their cultural competence in terms of appropriateness of language and idiomatic speech. They will also have opportunities to increase their competence in listening and reading comprehension, vocabulary, pronunciation, oral grammar, and conversational strategy use.

General learning goals: 1. Develop students’ confidence in their ability to speak and comprehend English speech. 2. Improve students’ vocabulary, pronunciation, and oral grammar in English. 3. Introduce students to “cultural” conversation cues, such as speech patterns, expressions, slang, and idioms. Most importantly, a strong emphasis will be placed on creating a positive learning environment in which students are not afraid to speak English and are not concerned about making mistakes in front of their peers.

Classroom Policies English: This class has an English-only policy. Frequent use of Korean will result in point deductions. It is OK to make small mistakes!!! Do not be shy. 10 points are given for participation! Cell phones & Class Etiquette: All cell phones must be switched off or turned to silent mode before coming to class. Students will have 1 point deducted from their final grade each time they use cell phones, leave class without explanation, use phone cameras to take pictures of boarded information, apply make-up, or show general disrespect during class. Texts: Students must buy the assigned textbook. Required texts, notebook and pencil / pen must be brought to every class. All supplementary materials must be kept in a binder or folder and stored for future reference. Plagiarism: Do NOT copy or use material from the internet. Any student found guilty of stealing from another source and attempting to pass it off as their own work will receive an automatic F grade for that assignment. Students who cheat a second time will fail the course completely. Do NOT use an online translator. General: Students must do pair role-play, quizzes, mid-term presentation and attend the final interview to pass the course.

In order to receive a passing grade in this course you must: Attend classes regularly and actively participate in class discussions. Attend a minimum of 2/3 of prescribed classes. Those who miss further classes without providing a doctor’s note (not a prescription) or a valid reason will get an F grade. You may miss one class period without penalty. Any further absences will result in a 1-point deduction from your attendance score. Arriving to class 20 minutes late or more is an absence. Each late arrival counts as 1/3 of an absence. A student is considered late if he / she arrives after roll-call. Satisfactorily complete all class work and assignments (role-play, presentation, quizzes and interview) on time. Late work will be subject to an appropriate point deduction.

This course will provide students with valuable preparation for the spoken components of the TOEIC, TOEFL, and IELTS tests. In addition, students will be able to utilize the conversation skills learned in this class in a variety of real-life situations. These include having informal conversations with native speakers, taking interviews in English, and using functional English when working, studying or traveling in an English-speaking country.