Course Description
The course is designed to help students take a deep approach in reading and writing academic texts which involve effective learning strategies and techniques aimed at improving the desired skills. The course consists of two major parts: the ‘reading section’ focusses on recognizing a topic sentence, skimming, scanning, use of cohesive devices, identifying facts and opinions, guess meanings of unfamiliar words. The ‘writing section’ deals with the knowledge and use of various grammatical components such as, parts of speech, tenses, voice, narration, modals etc. in practical contexts.
Course Objectives
- To enable students to identify main/topic sentences.
- To teach them to use effective strategies while reading texts.
- To acquaint them with cohesive devices and their function in the text.
Course Contents
1. Reading Skills
• Identify Main Idea / Topic sentences
• Skimming, Scanning, and Inference / Find Specific and General Information Quickly
• Distinguish Between Relevant and Irrelevant Information According to Purpose for Reading
• Recognise and Interpret Cohesive Devices
• Distinguish Between Fact and Opinion
• Guess the Meanings of Unfamiliar Words Using Context Clues
• Use the Dictionary for Finding out Meanings and Use of Unfamiliar Words
• Practice Exercises with Every Above Mentioned Aspect of Reading
2. Writing Skills
• Parts of Speech
• Phrase, clause and sentence structure
• Combining sentences
• Tenses: meaning and use
• Modals
• Use of active and passive voice
• Reported Speech
• Writing good sentences
• Error Free writing
• Paragraph writing with topic sentence
• Summary writing
Note: Teachers need to include practice activities, exercises and worksheets on the provided topics.
Recommended Readings
• Howe, D. H, Kirkpatrick, T. A., & Kirkpatrick, D. L. (2004). Oxford English for undergraduates. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Eastwood, J. (2004). English Practice Grammar (New edition with tests and answers). Karachi: Oxford University Press.
• Murphy, R. (2003). Grammar in use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.