This module is designed to ensure that all students who have typically achieved a minimum IELTS 6.5 (5.5 in all subskills) achieve a comprehensive research and extended writing competency in preparation for UG study. At its root is the need to create inquisitive and enquiring academics who can both conduct and present research in a reliable way. It is assessed using essential language objectives across the four skills as is EAP, but operationally can be divided into three parts:
Part 1: Reading and Research skills: This part forms the basis for the module as a whole and teaches students how to identify and explore texts in a research context, understand their validity and reliability as wider and specific reading and the academic conventions for citations, referencing and referring to the work of others. It includes teaching in discussion methods, supporting students into seminar-style learning and supervised academic approaches, developing listening skills in a variety of situations.
Part 2: Extended writing: This part forms a core part of a student’s UG repertoire, teaching form and structure, the use of grammar and tone for exploration, questioning and concluding and draws on the teaching in part 1 for the understanding of how reading and research forms a core base for writing analytical and evaluative pieces.
Part 3: Explaining and discussing findings: This part focuses on preparation for the use of spoken English in seminars and in assessment, leading to a presentation related to the writing project and a Viva in which academic discussion around the student’s findings will take place. It is taught throughout as all seminars will build relevant skills, though is assessed ultimately to allow the bringing together of all the skills learned during the module.
Learning Aims (include but not limited to)
Students will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical and questioning approach to information that may be taken for granted;
- Express themselves with fluency and accuracy in discussion, in an academic context and through the delivery of an oral presentation on a specific subject with evidence;
- Demonstrate self-reflection and independence of thought;
- Design and implement appropriate information gathering techniques in more than one field of research;
- Represent information appropriately and analyse, evaluate and interrogate it in discussion and in writing;
- Analyse and evaluate a range of academic written texts through a literature review and in collaborative discussion;
- Produce extended written text or project work showing controlled use of academic conventions and independent research;
- Develop active and collaborative listening skills in general and academic contexts; can persuade and also modify own position in light of evidence or provocation;
- Develop inter-cultural understanding to support communication in a UK context.
These over-arching aims are broken down into the four key Assessment Objectives used in the corresponding EAP module with the following additions to each which are designed to elevate Language competency to that of Research ability:
Assessment Objectives
AO 1: Listening
- Demonstrate the ability to work with supervision during personal research, evidencing what they have taken from their dialogue with their teacher (supervisor) in written or spoken tasks.
AO 2: Reading
- Demonstrate the ability to source relevant reading material, explore themes across multiple texts, comparing and synthesizing and using others’ scholarly work to inform their own.
AO 3: Speaking
- Convey complex and multi-layered personal thinking and responses with nuance and precision
as required, in dialogue or in presentation.
AO 4: Writing
- Use an academic and personal voice to develop extended or complex ideas, evidencing a depth
of reading and research and building an argument.
AO 3 is assessed during the presentation and viva, and AOs 1,2 & 4 are assessed over all three assessments; mark schemes for the RPS module identify how teacher annotation can be used to identify evidence against each.
Indicative Assessment Tasks
| Assessment | Indicative weighting | Indicative length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Annotated Bibliography | 10 credits | 1500 - 2000 words |
| 2. | Extended Research Project | 10 credits | 30 Minutes |
| 3. | Presentation / Viva | 5 credits | 15 - 30 minutes |