Introductory description

The 6-week Pre-sessional module for undergraduates is designed to acculturate students into the conventions, demands and expectations of their future discipline. Students focus on the particular texts and genres that students need to cope with to engage effectively in discipline-based study. During their work on the module, students will practise the skills of searching for appropriate source materials, integrating their reading into structures of exposition, argument, and discussion, using the norms of citation for their discipline. Iterative processes of writing to a rubric and editing written work in response to feedback are emphasised.
Students will also practise discussion of issues arising from listening or reading material. Collaborative, student-led discussion is emphasised as a method of developing skills for managing spoken interaction, exercising critical evaluation skills and raising student awareness of the benefits of dialogic learning.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Text and Genre skills:

• Selecting and evaluating source material
• Identifying relevant information in a text
• Citation and referencing practices
• Paraphrasing and academic integrity
• Text structures and organisation
• Discipline-specific genre writing development
• Coherence and cohesion in writing
• Effective reading skills for longer texts
• Critical reading

Speaking skills:
Language for participating in and co-constructing knowledge within discussions; using academic resources as a basis for discussion. Making an effective, well-structured and evidence informed contribution to a discussion

Skills for online learning • Generative AI affordances and constraints • Effective engagement with online lectures • What is means to be part of an online community • Enhancing cognitive and technical skills required to develop digital literacies for learning in UK HE context

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Read critically and demonstrate this through selecting relevant and appropriate texts and extracting, analysing, and evaluating relevant information, perspectives and arguments.
• Make appropriate and principled linguistic choices to communicate effectively, demonstrating an awareness of academic genre(s).
• Recognise and apply key epistemic and structural features of academic texts relevant to the discipline.
• Understand and critically reflect on the academic culture, practices and expectations of UK Higher Education Institutions.
• Interact with others effectively to co-construct understanding.
• Present an informed position on a topic discussed.

Subject specific skills

Students will be trained in a range of academic reading and writing strategies. They will learn how to appropriately select from and apply these strategies in order to synthesise and evaluate information from academic texts in order to produce appropriate academic discourse.
Students will be trained in a range of academic listening and speaking strategies. They will learn how to appropriately select from and apply these strategies in order to manage academic listening and speaking situations that commonly arise in the undergraduate context, such as seminar discussions.

Transferable skills

Students will learn how to manage a time-intensive schedule that includes synchronous and asynchronous teaching input as well as self-guided study.

• Library skills (e.g. finding and evaluating sources)
• Referencing
• Academic reflection
• Time management
• Self-evaluation
• Presentation skills
• Self-reflection
• Interpersonal and seminar skills
• Team working