Syllabus Information

5.1. Methodological overview

5.1. General methodological presentation

This course aims at training students to develop and apply mainly the skills of  reading and writing across academic situations they will have to cope with in their future career as occupational therapists. Students have already studied Scientific English I and are familiar with the biomedical vocabulary they acquired during the previous course, enabling them to develop knowledge and vocabulary of their own profession.

The course combines a theoretical background with a practical approach.

In the theoretical sessions, the teacher provides students with the tools and resources they need to understand, research and analyze texts of their specialization, search and process information from different sources. To achieve these goals, the teacher will suggest different activities, Reading before Writing, How to Find Appropriate Literature, How to Make Notes or Record Excerpts, Approaches to Reading Critically, etc.. including group work.

The teacher will assess students to develop skills in researching, evaluating information, organizing, arguing, responding to others’ arguments, analyzing, and expressing themselves clearly in writing.

The practical approach is based on guiding students to discuss situations related to Occupational Therapy. Students have the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge they have acquired during the theoretical sessions. The teacher provides students with tools and resources they need. Sometimes the teacher  will give students a list of possible questions or themes, and other times they will have the freedom to choose their own topic.

This course is basically focused on writing academically and will contribute to broaden the students’ knowledge during their future careers, since the specialized literature is mainly published in English.

The Writing Process: Each student should take his or her research essay

 through the stages of brainstorming ideas, drafting, peer tutorial, and revision.

By the end of the course, a student should:(a) understand and use the writing process including brainstorming, drafting, revising (b) identify problems in his or her writing (c) know how to evaluate other students' writing and comment upon it (d) be able to revise his or her writing according to the feedback from other students and the teacher.

5.2. Learning tasks

5.2. Learning activities

The learning process designed for  Academic Writing is structured as follows:

 Lectures

The teacher explains the theoretical foundations with the support of photocopies, online resources, videos, etc., and suggests activities so that students know how to apply what they have learned.

Peer tutorial, and revision

Individual and Group work.

Project                                     

During one of the practice sessions, the teacher will explain the objectives and provide students with guidance about the development of their projects. Each student will have  prepare an oral presentation about a topic related to Occupational Therapy. They will have to defend their project following the right steps assessed in class. The oral presentation is expected to demonstrate that students are competent in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, design and originality.

Individual tutoring

The teacher will clear doubts of individual students and guide them to overcome problems during the course.

5.3. Syllabus

5.3 Program

Syllabus

1.- Introduction to Written Academic Language

2.- How to write an abstract

3.- How to write a Research Article and a Case Study.

4.-Correspondence and emailing in the academia.

5.- How to introduce oneself in written form in the academia: bionotes and CVs

6. How to prepare Conference proposals and participation

5.4. Course planning and calendar

5.4. Planning and scheduling

- Lectures: 50 hours (from September to February).

- Activities. During the course, students will develop different activities that will be given or sent to the teacher for correction. A portfolio should be given to the teacher at the end of the course

- Project. .Students will have to prepare a project that will be orally presented during the last  sessions. It should be done at home, following the teacher´s instructions 

- The final exam will be held in February.                            

5.5. Bibliography and recommended resources

5.5. Bibliography and recommended resources

Web Pages

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/2/ The OWL at Perdue

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/about16.html Chicago Manual of Style online

http://learnhigher.ac.uk/Students/Academic-Writing.html

http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/PlanResearchPaper.html The Writing Center at University of Wisconsin

http://www.tesl-ej.org Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language.

Handbooks

Bailey, S. (2006). Academic writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed). London: Routledge.

Bell, D. (2008). Passport to academic presentations. Reading: Garnet Education.

Bruce, I. (2008). Academic writing and genre: A systematic approach. London: Continuum.

Canagarajah, S. (2002). Critical academic writing and multilingual students. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Gibaldi, J. (2003). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (6th ed.). New York: Modern Language Association of America.

Gillett, A. J., Hammond, A. C. & Martala, M. (2009). Successful academic writing. London: Pearson Longman.

Godfrey, J. (2011). Writing for university. London: Palgrae.

Herrando Rodrigo, Mº Isabel, Mur Dueñas, Pilar, Lorés Sanz, Rosa: Academic Writing for Health Sciences. Zaragoza, Prensas

Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2011.

Hewings, M. (1999). Advanced grammar in use. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Hyland, K. (2006). English for academic purposes: An advanced resource book. London: Routledge.

Meyers, A. (2005). Gateways to academic writing. New York: Longman.

Reinhart, S. M. (2002). Giving academic presentations. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Robinson, P. C. (Ed.). (1988). Academic writing: Process and product (ELT Documents 129). London: Modern English Publications.

Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (2009). Abstracts and the writing of abstracts. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Turner, J. (2010). Supporting academic literacy: Issues of proofreading and language proficiency. In G. Blue (Ed.), Developing

academic literacy (pp. 39-51). Oxford: Peter Lang.

Zemach, D. E. & Rumisek, L. A. (2005). Academic writing: From paragraph to essay. Oxford: Macmillan.