Intensive English Academic Course
In collaboration with CLA - Centro Linguistico di Ateneo, a special Intensive Academic English Course dedicated to Geoengineering - GEM students, is usually organized in September/October.
The teacher Nathalie Adams expects you to have already attained a B2 level of general English. In the first lesson she will ask you to fill in a ‘needs analysis’ form, so that the course can be adapted to meet individual needs within the group, and so to have teacher-student collaboration, so to focus and refine those academic language skills that will be most valuable to you, not only during your course of studies, but in your future working life as geoengineers.
“Academic English” differs from general English, and is required at University where you are expected to be able to express yourselves clearly and efficiently, not only during an oral or a written exam, but when giving a short presentation, asking questions and answering to queries, describing key concepts, discussing options, in analyzing processes, comparing methods, changes, trends, and so on.
Definition of Academic English can be found at https://www.academic-englishuk.com/definition-of-academic-english
All the four skills will be covered, speaking for everyday situations, listening for understanding lectures or conferences, writing short paragraphs related to your field, reading for scientific papers.
A variety of material will be used for reference as well as online resources such as Ted ED and word collocation sites, some scientific articles and papers. All the material will be provided by the teacher and students are advised to buy a plastic sheet folder (portalistino) to keep all the handouts in order.
The course is dedicated to GEM students already enrolled (a.y. 2017/18 and a.y. 2018/19) as well as to the new GEM students (academic year 2019/2020).
The partecipation is free of charge, the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will support all the costs, but the maximum allowed number in the course is of 18 students.