• Schaller-Schwaner Iris

Introduction
The adjective/prəˈfɪʃnt/ proficient (in/at (doing) something) means ‘able to do sth well because of training and practice’ (OALD 9th ed). The noun proficiency is also used in descriptions of language competence, more specifically even as a label for the highest-level certificate of the Cambridge ESOL exam board. More generally, language learners at the advanced levels C1 and C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) are described as proficient users. C1 is also named Effective Operational Proficiency and C2 Mastery. In this course, all these senses are implicated.
A high level of English language proficiency is required for studying English at university level and for success in a language teaching or other career as a language professional. The course offers to raise participants’ practical language skills, including control of language quality, mainly in prepared, unprepared and public speech, as well as their language awareness, e.g. in terms of grammatical and stylistic concepts, and to expand their (academic) vocabulary. It will focus on actively producing English orally, i.e. speaking, in text-focused and communicative oral tasks and activities typical of academic settings. These will include collaboratively and/or individually exploring topics and constructing and extending arguments or preparing, contributing to or leading discussions on a variety of topics (to be developed and researched). Fluent, clear and intelligible English pronunciation is part of oral proficiency.
The course also aims to enable participants to become autonomous learners who will continue improving their English beyond this course and to enhance their study skills by encouraging use of ‘heuristic’ instruments such as dictionaries, grammars, corpora, search engines etc. Sections of a course book (cf. below), excerpts of academic publications, materials from the web and articles from the press as well as reference works will be used. Close attention will also be paid to written and spoken texts and their language features and functions. Participants should prepare to pay attention to details of language, notice language difficulties and reframe what they learnt before. The course aims to head learners off into the direction of the C2 level of the CEFR. It is not intended as a course preparing for the Cambridge Proficiency Exam, though some relevant materials will be used.
Descriptive and pedagogical language work and communicative study tasks as well as academic speaking task are combined here to improve your metalinguistic awareness as well as your practical language skills and your learner agency. You will develop grammatical and stylistic concepts and expand your academic vocabulary and become more autonomous language learners.

Attendance, course requirements, assessment, exam registration
Attendance in this course is compulsory; you must not miss more than two class sessions. You have to register in Gestens for this course and you also have to register for the first exam session right away, i.e. you commit to taking the written test during the first exam session and to giving your oral presentation before the end of the semester. You also agree to engage in continuous interactive and individual oral work to develop productive language skills with respect to accuracy, complexity and fluency. Continuous assessment includes a successful oral presentation (topic to be individually negotiated with and confirmed by the lecturer) and a successful written test on materials covered. Revising for the test enhances engagement and progress during the semester. It forms part of the ongoing learning process as a means of pacing the learners’ engagement and investment in their skills development. Therefore, the written test cannot be postponed to a subsequent exam session.

Required materials
Gude, K.; Duckworth, M. & Rogers, L. 2012. Cambridge English Proficiency Masterclass. Student’s book with online skills & language practice. Oxford: OUP.
Access to an advanced learner’s dictionary and a descriptive reference grammar for students is essential. A range of reference works can be used at Criblet 13, 1st floor (BLE Library and SAC)
For self-study: Access to the Academic Word List (AWL), which is divided into ten sub-lists, is available online in various formats at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/

Individual work required
In heterogeneous groups individual trajectories and required work will vary to some extent. In general, assume responsibility for your own progress and contribute actively to the class sessions! Doing homework to be reviewed in class and coming to lessons prepared, speaking in class and contributing to languaging and discussion activities, revising for the written test and preparing and rehearsing an oral presentation are essential for this and you are expected to manage your own homework schedules. Please note that working with written and spoken texts requires more than comprehension but also noticing what is less familiar and making an effort to incorporate it into your active use of English. To enhance the language learning process, texts need to be mined for lexis and structure; what you notice, talk about (to yourself and others) or develop a metalanguage for will help you expand your language repertoire. Metalinguistic awareness also arises from studying and comparing descriptive grammars, which will in turn result in a new attitude and in a critical appreciation of teaching and learning resources available online. The descriptive grammars recommended below may represent an unfamiliar text type (without narrative thread or argumentative interest), implying that you may have to develop new study skills to profit from them. The reference titles below are available at Criblet 13 in the BLE library and SAC Self-Access Centre for Foreign Language Learning [Bibliothèque des langues étrangères et du plurilinguisme [BLE], Centre d'auto-apprentissage des langues étrangères [CAA]] and should be consulted and compared as required by the course or the individual. Please review all relevant grammar chapters in your own time. Keep a record of any issues that might arise. Take notes, ask questions, contribute to the discussion of homework, be an active learner. You should set aside approx. three hours a week for self-study, doing homework, revising grammar and checking and studying vocabulary. Outside your immediate coursework you should listen to and read English extensively, e.g. on http://www.bbc.co.uk/, http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ .

Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, participants will be able to give an effective presentation of 7 -10 minutes on a topic negotiated with the teacher and researched individually but related to an area of intellectual inquiry to be determined in class, demonstrating ability to speak freely from notes, using an appropriate range of vocabulary, grammatical structures and sign-posting phrases, organizing and linking ideas and arguments logically, showing awareness of oral presentation conventions, and maintaining language quality with regard to lexis, structure, style and pronunciation. They will be able to establish audience rapport, manage the available time, answer questions in the discussion of their presentation and engage with other participants’ talks, e.g. by asking follow-up questions. Participants are expected to prepare, initiate and sustain discussions and contribute to them by arguing their points fluently but also responding to other speakers. Students are expected to invest and engage in the learning process so that they will be able to search and use academic and popular sources of information as well as select and summarize relevant aspects; draw on and acknowledge sources explicitly; reflect complex arguments; relate relevant personal realizations, insights and experiences; attribute, connect and critically examine ideas; account for their take on the topic, identify issues and stimulate or invite reactions from the audience. They will avoid plagiarism, provocation and propaganda as well as minimalist recycling of work done for other courses. Metalinguistic awareness as well as focused form-oriented language skills will be demonstrated by students in accurately completing written test tasks of vocabulary association, gap filling, sentence manipulation, rewriting, identifying structures, choosing linguistic forms, explaining language use, applying metalanguage.

Learning objectives and course content
The CEFR’s C1/C2 descriptors will be examined with a view to the grammatical and lexical accuracy, complexity and fluency they require. In general, a proficient user at C1 “can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text.” At C2 a proficient user “can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.”
Specific aims of this course include expansion of participants’ general Academic English, awareness of stylistic differences, resourcefulness in oral production and interaction, honing listening and reading skills for sophisticated language use. Participants’ own investment into the learning process determines their outcomes. In the AS grammar work will include focus on past tense forms with non-past meanings, future time reference, perfect aspect, hypothetical meaning, modality, and complex sentences. Vocabulary work will focus on the lexis of all texts used and on the Academic Word List.

Methods
Presentation of texts and topics, discussion of content and language features, languaging and practice activities, discussion of descriptive pedagogical grammar, detailed processing of a variety of texts (spoken and written) for language learning, oral class work in pairs and groups on topics and language features, discussion of homework and individual questions, student-led discussions, student presentations (prepared speech) with individual feedback, intensive self-study (cf. below), work in the BLE library, dictionary work, using reference grammars, traditional and contextualized grammar exercises, awareness raising. Hand-outs made available before class need to be printed out and brought to class sessions on paper. Mobile devices are to be used for class purposes only. N.B.: working from screen appears to result in shallower processing and personally less satisfactory learning experiences.
 

Required materials
Gude, K.; Duckworth, M. & Rogers, L. 2012. Cambridge English Proficiency Masterclass. Student’s book with online skills & language practice. Oxford: OUP.
Access to an advanced learner’s dictionary and a descriptive reference grammar for students is essential. A range of reference works can be used at Criblet 13, 1st floor (BLE Library and SAC)
For self-study: Access to the Academic Word List (AWL), which is divided into ten sub-lists, is available online in various formats at http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/

Recommended Grammars
Leech & Svartvik 32004. A communicative grammar of English. 3rd ed. Pearson Longman.
Biber & Conrad & Leech 2002. Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Longman
Greenbaum & Quirk 1990. A student’s grammar of the English language. Longman
Quirk; Green; Leech & Svartvik 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman
Biber; Johansson; Leech; Conrad & Finegan 1999. Longman grammar of written and spoken English.

Recommended Dictionaries (available in pb with CD/DVD-ROMS) iPhone eds. have not been tested!
OALD Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 9th ed. 2015 (Pb + DVD + Premium Online Access). Mixed media format ISBN: 978-0-19-479879-2 [online access code is available individually]
excellent online resources for AWL at http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/academic/
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 4th ed. 2013 (with CD ROM)
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners 2nd ed. 2007 (+ CD ROM)
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English 5th ed. 2009 (with DVD-ROM) iPhone ed. available
Collins English Dictionary. 11th ed. 2011 (also on CD-ROM with Thesaurus)
Collins Robert Unabridged French-English Dictionary. 9th ed. 2010
Collins Unabridged German-English Dictio

Attendance, course requirements, assessment, exam registration
Attendance in this course is compulsory; you must not miss more than two class sessions. You have to register in Gestens for this course and you also have to register for the first exam session right away, i.e. you commit to taking the written test during the first exam session and to giving your oral presentation before the end of the semester. You also agree to engage in continuous interactive and individual oral work to develop productive language skills with respect to accuracy, complexity and fluency. Continuous assessment includes a successful oral presentation (topic to be individually negotiated with and confirmed by the lecturer) and a successful written test on materials covered. Revising for the test enhances engagement and progress during the semester. It forms part of the ongoing learning process as a means of pacing the learners’ engagement and investment in their skills development. Therefore, the written test cannot be postponed to a subsequent exam session. The AS (PE I) and the SS (PE II) course can be taken in reverse order if necessary.
 

Attendance, course requirements, assessment, exam registration
Attendance in this course is compulsory; you must not miss more than two class sessions. You have to register in Gestens for this course and you also have to register for the first exam session right away, i.e. you commit to taking the written test during the first exam session and to giving your oral presentation before the end of the semester. You also agree to engage in continuous interactive and individual oral work to develop productive language skills with respect to accuracy, complexity and fluency. Continuous assessment includes a successful oral presentation (topic to be individually negotiated with and confirmed by the lecturer) and a successful written test on materials covered. Revising for the test enhances engagement and progress during the semester. It forms part of the ongoing learning process as a means of pacing the learners’ engagement and investment in their skills development. Therefore, the written test cannot be postponed to a subsequent exam session. The AS (PE I) and the SS (PE II) course can be taken in reverse order if necessary.
 

Attendance, course requirements, assessment, exam registration
Attendance in this course is compulsory; you must not miss more than two class sessions. You have to register in Gestens for this course and you also have to register for the first exam session right away, i.e. you commit to taking the written test during the first exam session and to giving your oral presentation before the end of the semester. You also agree to engage in continuous interactive and individual oral work to develop productive language skills with respect to accuracy, complexity and fluency. Continuous assessment includes a successful oral presentation (topic to be individually negotiated with and confirmed by the lecturer) and a successful written test on materials covered. Revising for the test enhances engagement and progress during the semester. It forms part of the ongoing learning process as a means of pacing the learners’ engagement and investment in their skills development. Therefore, the written test cannot be postponed to a subsequent exam session. The AS (PE I) and the SS (PE II) course can be taken in reverse order if necessary.
 

Attendance, course requirements, assessment, exam registration
Attendance in this course is compulsory; you must not miss more than two class sessions. You have to register in Gestens for this course and you also have to register for the first exam session right away, i.e. you commit to taking the written test during the first exam session and to giving your oral presentation before the end of the semester. You also agree to engage in continuous interactive and individual oral work to develop productive language skills with respect to accuracy, complexity and fluency. Continuous assessment includes a successful oral presentation (topic to be individually negotiated with and confirmed by the lecturer) and a successful written test on materials covered. Revising for the test enhances engagement and progress during the semester. It forms part of the ongoing learning process as a means of pacing the learners’ engagement and investment in their skills development. Therefore, the written test cannot be postponed to a subsequent exam session. The AS (PE I) and the SS (PE II) course can be taken in reverse order if necessary.