Part 2

I AM A UNIVERSITY STUDENT

UNIT 1

THE WORLD A PART OF WHICH YOU HAVE BECOME

‘To achieve the goal you need to be going.’

You are already acquainted with the etiquette of interaction and know how to communicate in formal and informal situations. Now you are going to learn how to communicate effectively in academic situations. This Part provides you with understanding of the notion ‘university’ and introduces the University Community to you. We, the authors of this Part, are members of this Community, just as you are now, and that is why we were so overwhelmed while writing this Part. We joined this community in the early 70s, first learning to understand and appreciate its values as students, and later as teachers and researchers. You certainly agree that basic university values are timeless and universal which makes them important for students of all generations.

Now you are a university student, which means that you have joined the global university community. You have received a privilege to get to know it by using a foreign language and knowledge of a different language culture.

The Part consists of three units. Each is subdivided into sections that teach some definite skills: how to build up your own vocabulary on the topic, how to read different kinds of texts, how to communicate, to verbalize and discuss problems. A new thing for you is to build the skills of research work together with the skills of effective learning at a university level (effective learning strategies). You will learn how to read and render (review) educational and research texts, find out key words and make summaries, how to specify objects and subject-matters of your research or any other educational activity, how to set objectives and aims of your study or research together with finding the proper methods for their achievement.

You already know that to have a good command of a foreign language for communicating with a foreigner is not just to know a certain amount of words and grammar rules. You cannot be an effective communicator without understanding the situations of communication and the communities you interact with. Thus, to study at university and to communicate with university people you need to know this particular community and its rules of interaction.

You will have opportunities to use your creative thinking and social abilities while working on the projects offered at the end of each topic. Together with your groupmates you will be searching for the answers to different questions during your classes. Looking for the best solution of the problem, you will make presentations of your joint verbal and written communicative products, have role plays and simulate communicative situations.

Turn over this page and open the door to our university world.

You will learn here:

• that university is a special world that defines (диктует) specific communicative patterns and communication style;

• how to grasp and render texts about your new world;

• about university, faculty and chair structures;

• how to name participants of the university community.

You will be able to:

• collect and use the vocabulary on the topic;

• read, understand and render mini-texts on the topic;

• read and understand tables and charts;

• find the necessary information in the texts about the university community;

• speak on the structure of your faculty and university;

• get information and exchange it in different communicative situations of university interaction.

The total number of active vocabulary (words and phrases) on the topic to be collected by students is about 60.

 Vocabulary building

1.1. Listen to the dialogues and simultaneously look through them marking their order. Where could they take place?

№ 1 (…)

– Hi, Jane! What a surprise to see you here on campus! I bet you are a student already.

– Hi, Kate! You are right. I’ve entered the Information and Communication Department of the Institute of Journalism, this year. How about you?

– Oh, I am doing my third year here, at the university. By the way, I study in a similar department; the only difference is that mine is in the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. Anyway, they have classes in the same building so we’ll see each other quite often.

– Sounds great! And what do you major in?

–PR management.

– Me too. After graduation I am planning to work in advertising business so I specialize in this field.

№ 2 (…)

– Excuse me, I’m not quite sure how to get to the Department of International Affairs. I am from Poland, actually, and I am here on the Erasmus program. Could you help me, please?

– Sure. You should go to the administrative part of this building. The office is on the ground floor, room 110. Turn to the left, go down the stairs and then turn to the right. Ask for the Erasmus coordinator.

– Thank you! That’s very helpful.

– Good luck!

№ 3 (…)

– Andrew, do you have any idea what classes we are having tomorrow?

– Colloquium on argumentation, first class in the morning.

– Oh, no! I’ve quite forgotten about the colloquium. I am afraid I won’t be ready for it. I haven’t done any reading yet. It just couldn’t be worse.

– How come?

– You know, I’ve lost my Xerox copy of the timetable and mixed up some classes.

– That’s not good. Do you want me to send you our time-table by e-mail? I can do it tonight when I am home after the classes.

– That’ll be great, thank you so much.

№ 4 (…)

– Good morning, Professor. I am calling to find out whether we are gathering in the Dean’s Office today for our Academic Council session.

– Morning, colleague. In fact, today we are having a joint meeting of the Academic Council and Students’ Association and our library staff in two hours. We are meeting this time in room 119, which can fit us all.

– Thank you. Sorry for bothering you.

– You are welcome!

№ 5 (…)

– Any plans for tonight, Steve?

– Nothing special. It looks like I can relax a bit. And what about you?

– Oh, I’ve got a huge assignment. I doubt if I’ll manage to prepare it for tomorrow.

– Oh, dear. Is it really so much?

– Yes, tomorrow we are having English. I have words to learn and a text to render and I must tell you this text is really difficult to grasp. When I first looked it over, I could hardly make any head or tail of what it’s all about. I need to work with it. Plus I need to be ready for making a group presentation, and I cannot find any material on the Internet. So I’ll have to look for the sources in the library.

№ 6 (…)

– Bon appétit, Mike. How’s it going?

• Today it’s been the first time that I gave students a twenty-minute lecture in the course of my scientific supervisor. Have you already had any experience in lecturing?

– Of course, I have. This is a usual thing for a second year post-grad.

– Do you find it difficult to do?

– I really enjoyed it. The lecture I gave was on the same topic as my postgraduate paper. There were several situations when I didn’t feel comfortable, though. The students asked me tricky questions, you know, and I had to use all my expertise not to fail.

1.2. While working on the dialogues above you have come across conversational phrases like I bet, by the way, etc. id you have any difficulty in understanding them? If this is the case, go to Supplementary Material. Vocabulary Focus. Suggested Vocabulary Section. (p. ….).

1.3. Do you know that prepositions used after verbs can change their meaning? Such verbs are called phrasal verbs (look for is not the same as look). If you need to refresh your knowledge about them, go to Supplementary Material. Vocabulary Focus. Phrasal Verbs Section (p. ….).

1.4. You may have noticed that in the dialogues above communicants used a lot of phrases referring to Future. If you need to refresh your knowledge on Future Tenses, go to Supplementary Material. Grammar Focus. Future Tenses Section (p. ….).

1.5. In Appendix A read what Vocabulary Map is and build such a map centered around the idea or theme “University” using the material of the dialogues you’ve just read.

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University

1.6. Read the dialogues and define the communicative situation (who is talking, with whom, where, when, and on what occasion).

Dialogue No	Addresser (who)	Addressee (with whom)	Time (when)	Place (where)	Situation (on what occasion)
1
2
3
4
5
6

1.7. What aspects of the university life can you find in the dialogues?

1.8. Read an extract from the vocabulary entry ‘School’. It is taken from Roget’s Thesaurus of English words and expression. Discuss why all these words appeared under the same headline.

 Roget’s Thesaurus of English words and expression was published in 1852. The articles in this dictionary are organized not in a narrative way (not as texts in its general understanding), but by grouping the whole vocabulary of the English language semantically and thematically.

The article ‘School’ in its full scope is given in Appendix B. There you’ll also read about the way each vocabulary article is organized.

539 School

N. academy, institute, educational i.; college, lyceum, gymnasium, senior secondary school; conservatoire, ballet school, art s., academy of dramatic art; correspondence college; university, campus; polytechnic, poly; alma mater, old school, groves of academy.

1.9. If you were asked to write a dictionary entry “School” for a Russian- or Belarusian-language thesaurus, which words would you include?

1.10. Think what the university is for you and present your associations in separate lines

3 adjectives_________________________________________;

2 verbs________________________________________________;

1 noun___________________________________________________;

1 word expression or phrase ____________________________________.

1.8. Compare your associations in groups, find out words you have in common.

 Reading and rendering the text

Rendering:

‘1) representing in verbal form, depicting;

2) giving an interpretation or rendition of something;

3) expressing in another language or form; translating.’

(Render. (2009). In Dictionary of the English Language (4^th ed.) Retrieved from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/render¹)

2.1. Think why we call universities ‘higher educational establishments’. Read the definition of the word ‘university’ taken from Encyclopaedic dictionary and say if the words ‘higher educational establishments’ represent the notion ‘university’ fully enough.

“Universities are higher educational establishments and research institutions in which the whole set of courses that form the basis of scientific knowledge is being studied. U. trains specialists for different branches of economy, science, culture, and carry out research activities. A distinguished trait of u. is their thirst to closely connect education and research”.

2.2. Render the text without trying to learn it by heart. Are you happy with the result of your rendering?

2.3. Read Appendix B on Cognitive Map. Find out how easy it is to retell the text if you base your retelling on its cognitive map. Discuss it in the classroom.

 2.4. Read texts 1 and 2, draw Cognitive Maps for them and render the texts with the help of the Cognitive Maps build by you.

Text 1

In the Middle Ages with the help of the word ‘universitas’ (in Latin ‘sets of universus’ that is holistic combination of many) different communities were called, such as comradeships, merchants‘ guilds, trade-production shops etc. On analogy other newly appearing communities, such as open schools started to be called ‘universitas magistrorum et scholarium’ (as corporation) of teachers and students); and only with time the educational establishments started to be called u. first ‘studium’ school, then ‘stadium generale’ or general school; the attribute ‘generale’ pointed out at the international character of an educational establishment; later the term started to mean the curriclum of higher schools which unites the whole set of sciences (‘universitas literarum’).

(Smirnov, S.A. Russian higher school: on the way to new institutions

Retrieved from: http://www.antropolog.ru/doc/persons/smirnov/smirnov17)

Text 2

University institution of higher education, usually comprising a liberal arts and sciences college, graduate and professional schools and having the authority to confer degrees in various fields of study. A university differs from a college in that it is usually larger, has a broader curriculum, and offers graduate and professional degrees in addition to undergraduate degrees.

 Reading charts and tables

A Chart is

• a simple outline map on which information can be plotted or written.

• a sheet giving information in the form of diagrams, tables and illustrations.

(Chart. In Webster’s New World of the American Language)

A Table is

• a compact, systematic list of details, contents, etc.;

• a compact arrangement of related facts, figures, values, etc. in orderly sequence, and usually in rows and columns, for convenience;

• a reference as the multiplication table.

(Table. In Webster’s New World of the American Language)

3.1. Read the charts presented below: