B1860 - English for Academic Writing and Public Speaking (M-Z)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course the student can understand the main ideas of complex written and oral texts in the academic field of social and political sciences. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity and can express and negotiate viewpoints . Can produce clear, detailed texts on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Course contents

The course is aimed at developing academic writing and public speaking skills. Writing and oral communication strategies are discussed using authentic materials on three international relations topics: migration, international history and the environmental issue in international cooperation and public opinion.

For academic writing, lessons deal with the following topics:

• Essay writing: the three parts of an essay (introduction, body and conclusion); writing paragraphs; cohesion and coherence; writing concisely; summarising and paraphrasing; describing graphs; reading comprehension exercises on academic texts
• Documentation and reference style: how to look for reliable sources to write an academic essay; how to add references in an essay and in an academic dissertation; the structure of an academic paper and strategies to extract and report contents in your own essay/dissertation
• Using authentic texts to extract terminology and phraseology: every student as an optional activity can collect a source to be used to extract keywords and n-grams
• Grammar and language functions focus: as a language focus activity, lessons include grammar and phraseology topics, which the students do practical exercises on.

The laboratory on public speaking includes the following activities:

• Presentations, discussions, and debates with the purpose of improving functional language used in speaking such as: signalling a start, introducing the subject, presenting the purpose, asking rhetorical questions, providing background information, narrowing the topic, indicating a change of topic, emphasizing a point, summarizing a main idea, moving on/transitioning, linking ideas (cause and effect, contrast, additions, etc.) describing visual aids, signalling a close, dealing with questions
• Voice/delivery will also be worked on, which means improving the pronunciation of individual sounds, intonation, using stress to highlight key words and having right voice speed.

Readings/Bibliography

A dossier containing texts to be analysed during the course is made available online (Virtuale) when the course begins.

The following references are not a list of compulsory readings. They are texts regarding the topics and exercises that are included in the course.

Bianchi, Francesca, and Roberto Pazzaglia. 2007. ‘Student Writing of Research Articles in a Foreign Language: Metacognition and Corpora’. In Language and Computers: Studies in Practical Linguistics, 259–88. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.

Geyte, Els Van. 2013. Writing: Learn to Write Better Academic Essays. Londra: Collins.

Manninen, Satu, Ellen Turner, and Cecilia Wadsö-Lecaros. 2020. Writing in English at University: A Guide for Second Language Writers. Vol. 120. Lund Studies in English. Lund: Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University. https://www.coursera.org/learn/writing-english-university .

Pellizzari, Nicola. 2023. Critical Reading and Writing in Academic Contexts - a Resource Book for Students. Limena (PD): libreriauniversitaria.it. https://edizioni.libreriauniversitaria.it/libro/critical-reading-and-writing-in-academic-contexts/.

Wallwork, Adrian. 2013a. English for Academic Research: Grammar Exercises. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4289-9 .

———. 2013b. English for Academic Research: Vocabulary Exercises. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4268-4 .

———. 2013c. English for Academic Research: Writing Exercises. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4298-1 .

———. 2013d. English for Research: Grammar, Usage and Style. Boston, MA: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1593-0 .

Zemach, Dorothy E., and Lisa A. Rumisek. 2005. Academic Writing from Paragraph to Essay. [New ed.]. Oxford: Macmillan.

The following references are the books to study for the oral exam for non-attending students. Every student has to choose one book out of these three options:

Diener, Alexander C., Joshua Hagen. 2024. Borders: A Very Short Introduction. Second Edition. Very Short Introductions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Koser, Khalid. 2016. International Migration: A Very Short Introduction. Second Edition. Very Short Introductions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Maslin, Mark. 2021. Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction. Fourth Edition. Very Short Introductions. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Teaching methods

The academic writing classes include theoretical explanations and examples, followed by group work to be carried out during the lesson and individual work as homework, compulsory to take the exam as an attending student.

The language laboratory is aimed at improving fluency and accuracy in speaking skills in order to allow students to reach a good command of linguistic and communicative competence. It is conducted in relatively small groups.

Assessment methods

Attendance is not compulsory, but recommended since the course is very practical and focused on developing writing and speaking skills. Lessons give students the opportunity to do a lot of exercise and get teachers’ feedback to help them improve. . The final grade is out of 30 and corresponds to the average between the academic writing and the public speaking exams. The evaluation ranges are the following: excellent with honours/excellent (30L/30), above-the-average (29-28), very good/good (27-26), adequate (25-24), sufficiently adequate (23-21), barely sufficient (20-18), fail (≤ 17).

Academic writing exam

To take the academic writing exam, students have two options:

1) Taking part in two exams during the course (mid-term and final exam)

The exams take place in presence at the Political Science Department. The mid-term exam is organised during the fourth week of the Academic writing course. It is a compare and contrast writing exercise based on two sources (250-300 words, 45 minutes). The final exam takes place during the last week of the Academic writing course and consists in writing an essay (500-600 words, 90 minutes) on one of the topics discussed during the course based on three sources given by the teacher. The academic writing grade corresponds to the weighted average of the mid-term and the final exam distributed as follows: 30% for the mid-term and 70% for the final exam.

If a student is absent at either the mid-term or the final exam, or if they fail or want to reject the grade of one of them, they can recoup it in one of the official exam dates of an exam session of the same academic year. If a student is absent at both the mid-term and the final exam, or if they fail or want to reject the grade of both of them, they have to take the exam with option 2.

2) Taking part in one exam in the official exam dates

The exam in the official exam dates consists in writing an essay (750-900 words, 120 minutes) on one of the topics discussed during the course based on three sources given by the teacher.

Public speaking exam for attending students

For public speaking, students are divided into smaller groups to have the opportunity to participate. Therefore, students who wish to attend need to keep the same group throughout the semester. An attending student is defined as someone who has attended at least 70% of lab classes. Students are evaluated based on their participation (level of engagement and listening skills) and on an oral presentation they have to prepare on a topic of their choice.

Public speaking exam for non-attending students

For the public speaking exam, non-attending students have to prepare a 10-minute presentation on a topic related to the book chosen (see Readings/Bibliography section) and send Dr. Ghiselli slides (including references) a week before the exam date. After the presentation, there are 10 minutes of discussion about the book. The grade corresponds to the average between the prepared presentation and the discussion about the book.

During an official exam session students can take the exam only once. The grade is registered in the exam record only when both parts (academic writing and public speaking) are passed. The exams already passed are valid for the academic year (summer and autumn sessions 2025 and winter session 2026). After that, if a student has not passed both the academic writing and the public speaking exam, they have to retake the whole exam.

Assessment criteria

The assessment criteria for the writing exercises are:

• Response to the question: use of writing prompt(s)
• Content: communicative achievement
• Writing skills: organization and development of ideas
• Language: vocabulary, grammar, language functions

The assessment criteria for the oral presentation are:

• Delivery: pronunciation, voice and body language, use of visual aids
• Content: communicative achievement
• Structure: organization and development of ideas, both during the prepared presentation and the follow-up questions
• Language: vocabulary, grammar, language functions

Teaching tools

Virtuale course page, audio/video materials

Office hours

See the website of Serena Ghiselli