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Course information for Academic Presentations and Pronunciation for Non-Native Speakers, an Academic English course for graduate research students at UCL.
Course overview
This course is for you if you want to develop your skills and confidence for speaking to an audience.
This one-term course identifies your presentation needs and provides input, practice and feedback on giving presentations on individual research areas and topics, as well as managing and responding to audience questions.
Related and relevant aspects of pronunciation are integrated into the lesson input to provide practice and feedback on intonation and sounding natural, as well as voice quality and confidence for delivering an effective academic presentation.
Which course should I take?
Pronunciation and Academic Discussions or Academic Presentations and Pronunciation
If you are unsure about which course is for you (Pronunciation and Academic Discussions for Non-Native Speakers or Academic Presentations and Pronunciation for Non-Native Speakers), or if you feel you would like to do both courses, it may depend on your level of English.
If you feel you need to work on your pronunciation in depth, you should do Pronunciation and Academic Discussions this term and Academic Presentations and Pronunciation next term.
On the other hand, if you are a strong speaker and don’t need much help with pronunciation (for example you can be understood easily and you speak English fluently), you should do Academic Presentations and Pronunciation this term and do not need to do Pronunciation and Academic Discussions.
Course aims
To course aims to:
- encourage autonomy and self-confidence in presenting your research in a coherent and clear way;
- improve and develop your presentation skills for an academic environment;
- raise awareness of the most important features of English pronunciation required to give a clear, effective presentation in an academic environment;
- give additional individual support with presentation skills and pronunciation needs through an individual tutorial and two recorded presentations.
Course content
These sessions will cover:
- Beginning presentations – the introduction;
- Organising a presentation – signposting and linking of information and sections;
- Concluding a presentation– strong, convincing endings;
- Using visuals and presenting data effectively in a presentation;
- Dealing with questions –understanding and addressing different types of questions;
- Presentation Recordings – Presentations recorded with self- evaluation, peer and tutorial feedback;
- Voice quality and confidence building in presentations; making presentations sound smoother and more natural for presenting both in person and online.
Course outline
There are nine classes and one tutorial.
| Week | Pronunciation content | Public speaking content |
|---|---|---|
| One | Sounds and the phonemic alphabet – overview | Presentations warmer – to get you started |
| Two | Sounds and the phonemic alphabet continued - problem sound pairs | Recording one - short presentation filmed, with tutorial feedback |
| Three | Word stress – stress-timing and reminder of ‘schwa’ | Beginning presentations – the introduction |
| Four | Phrase stress – with emphasis on key words | Organising a presentation – signposting and linking |
| Five | Linking and contractions – making it sound smoother and more natural | Ending a presentation – strong, convincing endings |
| Six | Sentence stress – including contrastive stress | Using visuals and presenting data |
| Seven | Chunking and pausing – dividing up what you say into meaningful segments Intonation – variety of voice | Dealing with questions – addressing different types of questions – review of main elements in giving a presentation |
| Eight | Recording two – final presentations delivered with Q&A session | |
| Nine | Review and suggested focus for post-course study. | Recording two – final presentations delivered with Q&A session |
Course delivery
This course takes place online. It's an interactive course and to ensure you can participate fully, you must join each session from a quiet space where you can speak freely and join in all activities.
The course is taught for two hours a week over nine weeks. You also have an online 30-minute individual tutorial.
There is a maximum of 10 students in each class.
Tutorials
Your 30-minute individual tutorial takes place via Teams at a time arranged between you and the tutor.
The purpose of the tutorial is for both you and the tutor together to review your first diagnostic presentation, to establish your main pronunciation and presentation priorities and to set goals for the final recorded presentation at the end of the course. Regular general feedback on presentations and pronunciation is also provided in the class.
Once a tutorial has been arranged, you should make every effort to attend as agreed. Any tutorial cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will not be rescheduled.
Course dates and times
| Day | Time | Location | Start date | Edn date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesdays | 11am-1pm | Online | 23 April 2024 | 18 June 2024 |
How to register
Registration for this course is managed by UCL Doctoral Skills using inkpath. If you have not previously registered with inkpath, you will need to follow the ‘Use Single Sign-On’ button.
Homework
The tutor may set short homework exercises to enable you to practise pronunciation items covered in the class, or to prepare for the next class.
You will also be expected to prepare short presentations of between 5 and 10 minutes each, which will be filmed in weeks 2 and 8.
Attendance
In order to benefit fully from the course, we strongly recommend 100% attendance. If you have to miss a class, please inform the tutor beforehand.
Course Feedback / Staff-Student Consultative Exercise
All students on Part-time English courses have the opportunity to give general feedback on their course to senior representatives of CLIE.
Academic support
If you have any questions about your course, please feel free to ask your tutor.
Alternatively, contact the Course Coordinator, Mrs Daphne Thomas: daphne.thomas@ucl.ac.uk.
Rights and Responsibilities
CLIE seeks to ensure that all students have a positive experience in respect of courses taken here, and fully adheres to the broader rights and responsibilities policies of UCL.
As part of our responsibility, our courses will follow a logical structure consistent with delivering the content and skills practise that we advertise, but with the freedom for teachers to respond (e.g. via needs analysis at the beginning of the course) to further relevant areas of particular interest to each student group.
Problems and complaints
If you are unhappy about any aspect of your course we would advise you in the first instance to speak to a member of staff at CLIE to see if the problem can be easily resolved within the department. For further details of our formal complaints procedure, please email the Part-time Course Coordinator or administration team at pteap@ucl.ac.uk.