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Learning Outcomes

The main goal of SCLA 620 is to help students improve their communication, language, and presentation skills to enable them to communicate more effectively as a professional. At the end of this course students will be able to: 

  • State their strengths and weaknesses in oral English;
  • Demonstrate improved pronunciation, prosody, grammar, listening comprehension, and vocabulary, depending on their strengths and weaknesses;
  • Identify and carry out specific strategies for developing their language skills;
  • Demonstrate effective communication and presentation skills including question and answer strategies, negotiating for meaning, paraphrasing, compensatory strategies, and nonverbal skills;
  • Compose and assess presentations and interaction appropriate for a variety of professional contexts;
  • Demonstrate behavior appropriate for professional and instructional contexts in higher education in the United States;
  • Identify the characteristics of students, teaching assistantships, and higher education in the United States.

Course Assignments

Major assignments for this course include: 1) four presentations; 2) presentation self-assessments; 3) participation in discussions with undergraduates about effective classroom communication; and 4) informal reports on TA assignments in the students’ program or department. Additional assignments will be determined by the student’s instructor.

Individual Tutoring and Conferencing

An important and valuable component of SCLA 620 is the individual meeting time students have scheduled with their course tutor and classroom instructor each week. In addition to 4 hours of class time each week, each student will also arrange a weekly 30-minute conference time with the classroom instructor and a weekly 30-minute appointment with their course tutor. By working individually with their classroom instructor and course tutor, students have the opportunity to work on the specific linguistic and communicative challenges that they are facing. They also learn strategies that they can use to continue improving independently after completing SCLA 620.

Course Grades

The course grade is based upon 1) course attendance and participation; 2) conference attendance and participation; 3) attendance and participation at weekly tutoring appointments. Depending on the student’s attendance and participation then, a grade of "P" (pass) or "N" (not pass) will appear on their transcript. A grade of "P" however, does not necessarily mean the student has been certified for English proficiency. For more information on certification, please see the next section.

English Proficiency Certification

At the end of the semester, the OEPP Director determines whether or not students will be certified for English proficiency. The factors that determine this decision are 1) a review of the final evaluation from the classroom instructor; 2) a review of the student’s communicative success in course presentations; 3) a review of the feedback from undergraduate volunteers attending the course presentations; 4) a review of the student’s communicative success in the course in general; and 5) a review of the student’s assignments, including recordings done for homework. Students not certified at the end of the course can retake SCLA 620 in order to attain certification.