Oral English Fall 2007 Syllabus

Oral English Fall 2007 Syllabus Prof. X - ZZZ University - Fall 2007 Office: Rm. 330 Office Hours: * Email: XX.edu

Course Goal: This course is an intermediate oral course for university students. The class focuses on listening comprehension and oral production skills necessary for participation in a university classroom. The class includes group discussion, conversational strategies, partner practice, and individual oral sharing.

Course Promise: Very few jobs require no interaction with others nor are they free from collaborative efforts. Teachers, policemen, engineers, doctors, lawyers, computer programmers, etc. all must interact with others in order to ensure the client (or student, patient, etc.) has the intended outcome.

Students in this course will learn by doing. This course will help you develop working in small groups, making presentations to larger groups, and in developing skills necessary to understand underlying messages or subtext of other’s. Listening comprehension may be as much about what is not said – or by body position or facial expressions – as it is about the words that are actually spoken. Your goal this semester – should you choose to accept the challenge presented in this course – is to develop the skills of listening and speaking in different sizes of groups.

Objectives: Successful students in this course will demonstrate the ability to: ● Speak clearly and thoughtfully in a group ● Analyze a speaker’s subtext or underlying message hidden in missing words or in some type of physical gesture or expression ● Put a colleague or client at ease through conversation techniques (commonly termed “small talk”) ● Function as part of a team

Assessment Assessment will be conducted in the same manner as the class is taught. The true assessment of skills/content knowledge developed in this course will be your ability to: ● function in a group ● present a speech in front of the class ● complete a group project where each member of the group has a specific task ● video tape yourself talking to someone you’ve just met ● analyze a speech for subtext

20% - Midterm and Final (each worth 10% of total grade) 30% - Team Project (specific information presented on 3rd class meeting) 20% - Video tape of you meeting someone new and making them feel comfortable. This will be accomplished during by your assisting the admission’s office working with prospective students who are visiting campus. 10% - Formal speech (details presented on the 12th class meeting) 20% - Speech analysis for subtext (details presented on the 20th class meeting)

Attendance: Because you will be functioning in teams throughout the course, and since this course is about communication, your attendance is essential at each class meeting.