Professional English I

HS3151

PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH - I

OBJECTIVES :

• To improve the communicative competence of learners

• To learn to use basic grammatic structures in suitable contexts

• To acquire lexical competence and use them appropriately in a sentence and understand their meaning in a text

• To help learners use language effectively in professional contexts

• To develop learners’ ability to read and write complex texts, summaries, articles, blogs, definitions, essays and user manuals.

UNIT - I

INTRODUCTION TO EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

What is effective communication? (Explain using activities) Why is communication critical for excellence during study, research and work? What are the seven C’s of effective communication? What are key language skills? What is effective listening? What does it involve? What is effective speaking? What does it mean to be an excellent reader? What should you be able to do? What is effective writing? How does one develop language and communication skills? What does the course focus on? How are communication and language skills going to be enhanced during this course? What do you as a learner need to do to enhance your English language and communication skills to get the best out of this course?

INTRODUCTION TO FUNDAMENTALS OF COMMUNICATION

Reading - Reading brochures (technical context), telephone messages / social media messages relevant to technical contexts and emails. Writing - Writing emails / letters introducing oneself. Grammar - Present Tense (simple and progressive); Question types: Why/ Yes or No/ and Tags. Vocabulary - Synonyms; One word substitution; Abbreviations & Acronyms (as used in technical contexts).

UNIT - II

NARRATION AND SUMMATION

Reading - Reading biographies, travelogues, newspaper reports, Excerpts from literature, and travel & technical blogs. Writing - Guided writing-- Paragraph writing Short Report on an event (field trip etc.) Grammar –Past tense (simple); Subject-Verb Agreement; and Prepositions. Vocabulary – Word forms (prefixes& suffixes); Synonyms and Antonyms. Phrasal verbs.

UNIT - III

DESCRIPTION OF A PROCESS / PRODUCT

Reading – Reading advertisements, gadget reviews; user manuals. Writing - Writing definitions; instructions; and Product /Process description. Grammar - Imperatives; Adjectives; Degrees of comparison; Present & Past Perfect Tenses. Vocabulary - Compound Nouns, Homonyms; and Homophones, discourse markers (connectives & sequence words).

UNIT - IV

CLASSIFICATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Reading – Newspaper articles; Journal reports –and Non Verbal Communication (tables, pie charts etc,). Writing – Note-making / Note-taking (*Study skills to be taught, not tested); Writing recommendations; Transferring information from non verbal ( chart , graph etc, to verbal mode) Grammar – Articles; Pronouns - Possessive & Relative pronouns. Vocabulary - Collocations; Fixed / Semi fixed expressions.

UNIT - V

EXPRESSION

Reading – Reading editorials; and Opinion Blogs; Writing – Essay Writing (Descriptive or narrative). Grammar – Future Tenses, Punctuation; Negation (Statements & Questions); and Simple, Compound & Complex Sentences. Vocabulary - Cause & Effect Expressions – Content vs Function words.

TOTAL : 45 PERIODS

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

At the end of the course, learners will be able

• To use appropriate words in a professional context

• To gain understanding of basic grammatical structures and use them in right context.

• To read and infer the denotative and connotative meanings of technical texts

• To read and interpret information presented in tables, charts and other graphic forms

• To write definitions, descriptions, narrations and essays on various topics

TEXT BOOKS :

1. English for Engineers & Technologists Orient Blackswan Private Ltd. Department of English, Anna University, (2020 edition)

2. English for Science & Technology Cambridge University Press, 2021. Authored by Dr. Veena Selvam, Dr. Sujatha Priyadarshini, Dr. Deepa Mary Francis, Dr. KN. Shoba, and Dr. Lourdes Joevani, Department of English, Anna University.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

1. Technical Communication – Principles And Practices By Meenakshi Raman & Sangeeta Sharma, Oxford Univ. Press, 2016, New Delhi.

2. A Course Book On Technical English By Lakshminarayanan, Scitech Publications (India) Pvt. Ltd.

3. English For Technical Communication (With CD) By Aysha Viswamohan, Mcgraw Hill Education, ISBN : 0070264244.

4. Effective Communication Skill, Kulbhusan Kumar, RS Salaria, Khanna Publishing House.

5. Learning to Communicate – Dr. V. Chellammal, Allied Publishing House, New Delhi,2003.

ASSESSMENT PATTERN

Two internal assessments and an end semester examination to test students’ reading and writing skills along with their grammatical and lexical competence.