Overview

This course is aimed at helping international students improve overall English language competence for written English within the academic context, enabling confidence producing academic essays/reports.

The course will provide opportunities to explore and put into practice academic essay writing conventions. The process of planning, organising, drafting, re-writing, and quoting and referencing of sources in writing will be reinforced, and in each session, some consideration of the language of academic writing will be incorporated.

The module uses a communicative practice-based approach that will allow students writing time and language work in each class, with peer discussion and review. By the end of the course, students will have had the opportunity to build confidence in producing writing for the academic context.

QXS1004 can be taken as pre-course study in Semester 1, but it is not a co-requisite.

Essay writing; Report writing; Academic vocabulary and style; Organisation and structure for writing; Grammar & vocabulary use; Reading for writing with emphasis on how to reference and paraphrase sources as support in writing.

Assessment Strategy

• Threshold (Grade D) - A student has achieved the minimum acceptable standard of competence in coursework and examination relating to the learning outcomes above. A student shows the ability to write a satisfactory essay with some awareness of acceptable structure, content, style and language accuracy, though there are a number of errors in grammar and vocabulary use which can impede understanding in places. A student will have shown evidence of limited use of sources for the directed essay/report, with basic competence only in referencing, citation and quotation.

• Good (Grade C-B) - A student has achieved a good standard of competence in coursework and examination relating to the learning outcomes above. A student shows the ability to write a good essay/report and demonstrates awareness of the need for a clear structure, relevant content, and suitable style. Grammatical accuracy is overall good; there are some minor errors in grammar or vocabulary use, but these do not often interfere with the communication of ideas. A student shows mostly appropriate use of sources for the directed essay/report and a generally good competence in referencing, citation and quotation is demonstrated.

• Excellent (Grade A) - A student has achieved an excellent standard of competence in coursework and examination relating to the learning outcomes above. A student shows the ability to write a very good competent essay/report with a logical structure, relevant content, suitable style and overall good language accuracy. There are very few errors in grammar or vocabulary use and any there are do not interfere with the communication of ideas. A student shows some very good use of sources for the directed essay/report, demonstrating an overall competence in referencing, citation and quotation.

Learning Outcomes

• To be able to plan and structure an academic piece of writing within a requested genre (essay / report).

• To recognise and apply the conventions of academic writing, specifically referencing, citation and quotation.

• To understand and put into practice the linguistic demands of academic writing (discourse and grammar).