Syllabus for English Language

Basic User. A Level. 2-nd Year

Course coordinator: T. I. Ershova
Class teachers:
Course overview:
This course is designed for students learning English at a Basic User level, which is defined
within the common reference European Framework and corresponds to the classic division into
Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate, to further develop their English language knowledge and
skills.

A1
(Breakthrough) Pre-Intermediate
A
(Basic User)
A2 Interm
(Waystage) ediate

The aim of the syllabus is to prepare students to use English for academic purposes while
studying at the Higher School of Economics and subsequently for their professional needs in real
business situations. This is realized as BEC 1 at Breakthrough and Waystage levels.
This preparatory BEC course is designed to give students the opportunity to acquire a certain
amount of the terminology needed to understand texts on business and finance in the English
speaking world.
Themes will include a selection of the following:

 Banking

 Business organization

 Stock exchange

 Sales and negotiations

 Setting up a business and presenting a company

 General economy

 Presenting a company
Where appropriate, areas of specialist interest to students will be covered.
 The student can understand and use familiar everyday
A1 expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction
(Breakthrough) of needs of a concrete type; can introduce him/herself and
others and can ask and answer questions about personal
details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and
things he/she has; can interact in a simple way provided the
other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

The student can understand sentences and frequently used

BEC 1 expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance
A2 (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping,
(Waystage) local geography, employment); can communicate in simple
and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of
information on familiar and routine matters; can describe in
simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate
environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

The course incorporates 3 basic components:

1. Business English
2. BEC Examination Preparation (Preliminary)
3. Professional English (English for Specific Purposes)
The course aims at mastering the following skills:
 Language Development, which involves grammar and extensive vocabulary learning and
practice.
 Writing Skills with a specific focus on business correspondence.
 Reading, which involves analysis of business-related texts of topical relevance.
 Listening, which includes comprehension of gist and detailed information.
 Communication Skills, which cover a range of communication situations, such as
negotiations, presentations and meetings.
Course objectives:
The main objectives of the syllabus are:
 to provide material for the students to learn and extend their command of English
grammar and vocabulary;
 to develop the students' reading skills to enable them to skim the text for main idea, to
scan the text for specific information, to interpret the text for inferences, attitudes and
styles, to deduce meanings from the context;
 to develop the students' writing skills to enable them to respond to input applying
information to a specified task, to elicit, to select, to summarize information in a range of
writing activities, such as essays, reports and various forms of business correspondence;
  to develop the students' listening skills to enable them to understand and apply specific
information from the input;
 to develop the students' speaking skills to enable them to use social and professional
language;
 to develop the students' general capacity to a level that enables them to use English in
their academic and professional environment granted that they are provided with the
specific notions and vocabulary of economics, mathematics, statistics, banking and
finance in the course of their studies;
 to develop the students' ability to apply knowledge of the language system, to develop
their social competence skills, to form their behavioural stereotypes and professional
skills necessary for successful social adaptation of graduates.
Methods of assessment:
Assessment is by coursework, which integrates the following:
 individual and group oral presentations;
 oral interactions ;
 written tests and tasks of various length (letters, faxes, reports, memoranda);
 essays;
 listening/viewing;
 communicating the gist of business-related reading passages;
 translation of texts on economics.
A measure of classroom participation, progress and motivation accounts for 20% of the overall
assessment. An essay on a business-related topic, tests in Business English and ESP as well as a
BEC sample test (reading and writing) account for 10% each. A final exam comprising BEC 1-
format listening comprehension, a short oral presentation and an information exchange activity
accounts for 40% of the total credit.
Main reading:
This syllabus will be fulfilled on the basis of textbooks and training materials published by
British and American publishing houses. The usage of up-to-date authentic materials will help
students to obtain the necessary skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking, develop their
abilities in making presentations and participating in discussions and enable them to achieve a
reasonable level of social and professional adaptation.
Business English Course books:
Cotton D., Falvey D., Kent S. Market Leader. Intermediate Business English. Longman, 2001.
Cotton D., Robbins S. Business Class. Oxford University Press, 1999.
Howard-Williams D., Herd C. Business Words. Heinemann, 1997.
BEC Examination Preparation Course books:
Williams A., Wood I. Pass Cambridge BEC 1. An Examination Preparation Course. Oxford,
1999.
ESP Сourse book:
Воронцова И. И. И др. Английский язык для студентов экономических факультетов:
Учебное пособие. – М.: «Издательство ПРИОР», 1999.
1. Business English
The Business English course continues the first intensive course designed to introduce the
students into the world of business.
The course is intended to:
 develop the students' comprehension of business and economic texts;
 develop the students' listening skills in the field of business and economics;
 provide the students with opportunities to express business concepts by reformulating
them in their own words while summarizing, analyzing, criticizing and discussing the
following ideas: company structures, work motivation, recruitment, management styles,
advertising and marketing, franchising, retailing, banking, stocks and shares bonds, the
small business, the role of government, ecology, etc.
The students' competence in this aspect is measured by their awareness of how to negotiate,
write letters of request and complaint, business letters, memos; be IT users; create data bases and
work with them; analyze information (including ads); make reports and business plans; analyze
job ads in search of appropriate job positions, prepare CVs and letters of application and have
successful job interviews.

Teaching hours for topics

Topic Titles Hours Topic Titles Hours

st nd
1 semester (September – December) 2 semester (January-June)
Breakthrough/Waystage Breakthrough/Waystage
Innovation 4 Strategy 6
Organization 6 Cultures 6
Money 6 Leadership 8
Ethics 8 Competition 8
Change 8 Quality 8
Total 32 Total 36

2. BEC Examination Preparation Course

The BEC 1 Examination Preparation Course is tailored to the BEC requirements and focuses on
training the students in examination skills. The priority of the course is to familiarize the students
with the content and format of the BEC examination paper by providing them with examination-
specific exercises and useful tips on successful task completion.
The course contains extensive reading practice, using authentic, semi-authentic and examination-
style texts representing a wide variety of genres. It also has a heavy bias towards listening
comprehension, which is mastered by using a large amount of authentic listening material.
Teaching hours for skills development

Skills Hours Skills Hours

1st semester (September – December) 2nd semester (January-June)
Breakthrough/Waystage Breakthrough/Waystage
Reading 8 Reading 10
Writing 8 Writing 8
Listening 8 Listening 8
Speaking 6 Speaking 8
BEC 1 Mid Sample Test 2 BEC 1 Final Sample Test 2
Total 32 Total 36

3. Professional English (ESP)

The purpose of the ESP course is to provide further preparation for dealing with Economics,
Mathematics and Statistics in English.
Development of the students' knowledge of economic terms and topics involves various
economy-related issues, e. g. the production possibility frontier, markets, microeconomics and
macroeconomics, economic analysis, supply and demand, price, income, output, money and
banking, central banking, international trade.
The students' competence in ESP is measured by their ability to use ESP in their studies and
research work to the level where they are able to:
 understand and interpret information presented in verbal, numerical or graphical form
and do information transfers;
 make meaningful generalizations about data;
 select and apply laws and principles to familiar problems presented in a new manner;
 recognize unstated assumptions;
 distinguish between statements of fact, statements of value and hypothetical statements;
 make valid inferences from materials presented;
 organize ideas and present them in an appropriate manner;
 evaluate the reliability and accuracy of the material;
 detect logical fallacies in arguments;
 check that conclusions drawn are consistent with given information;
 organize and present ideas and statements in a clear, logical and appropriate form.
Teaching hours for texts and activities

Text Titles Hours Text Titles Hours

1st semester (September – December) 2nd semester (January-June)
Breakthrough/Waystage/ Breakthrough/Waystage/
Threshold Threshold
Macroeconomics and 6 Pricing 4
Microeconomics
Market Research 6 The Problem of Inflation 4
Marketing 6 Central Banking: an Overview 4
Market Leaders: Microsoft and Alcoa 6 Loans in the UK 4
Consumer Choice 4 Multinational Enterprises 4
Demand, Price and Income 4 Regional and Urban Policy 4
in the UK
Poverty and Inequality 4
OPEC and Oil Markets 4
Production and Development 4
Total 32 Total 36
Skills development
Within the three basic courses outlined above the students are taught to develop their skills in the
following areas:
Reading, which involves predicting, skimming, scanning, detailed reading, guessing unknown
words from context, understanding text organization, recognizing argument and counter-
argument; distinguishing between main information and supporting detail, fact and opinion,
hypothesis versus evidence; summarizing and note-taking.
Writing includes:
 essay content and structure (patterns of organization, paragraphing, discussion –
argument/counter-argument, advantages and disadvantages, topic sentence and
supporting ideas, coherence and cohesion, punctuation, quoting and referencing, avoiding
plagiarism, bibliographies);
 functions (generalization, definitions, exemplification, classification, comparison and
contrast, cause and effect, process and procedure, interpretation of data);
 style (passive constructions, avoiding verbosity);
 punctuation.
Listening comprises:
 general comprehension (listening for gist, listening for detailed information, recognizing
relevant/irrelevant information);
 lectures (identifying the topic and main themes, identifying relationships among major
ideas, comprehending key information, identifying supporting ideas and examples).
Speaking incorporates:
 seminar skills (agreeing and disagreeing, clarifying, questioning, persuading,
emphasizing, concluding, interrupting; evaluating ideas and actions, presenting
solutions);
 presentation skills (introductions and stating the purpose, emphasizing and highlighting
key points, preparing the audience for visuals, how to use an OHP, summaries,
conclusions and closing courtesies).
The students' competence in skills development is measured by their ability to understand and
produce written and spoken language in an educational context and to perform the following
academic tasks:
 reading and understanding written academic language;
 writing assignments in an appropriate style for university study;
 listening to and comprehending spoken language in both lecture format as well as formal
and informal conversational style;
 speaking to colleagues and lecturers on general and given topics in formal and informal
situations.
Teaching and learning methods:
Teaching, learning and assessment are designed to enable students to achieve the course
objectives described above. While part of any session is likely to involve direct teaching, the
emphasis is on student participation and teachers should encourage students to take part actively
in discussion and in tasks like small group and pair work, role play, and individual or group
presentations.
Independent learning:
Students are expected to spend time studying outside the class, and we provide guidance,
facilities and materials to help them develop their expertise as independent language learners.
For this course, they are asked to consolidate their class work, to read, watch or listen to material
in English, to prepare exercises and activities for the class, to write assignments, undertake
projects and generally acquire a repertoire of effective language learning strategies.
Course materials:
Authentic print and other materials will be used in class, linked to the topic areas studied. Topic-
based self-access resources (authentic print, audio and video), dictionaries and grammars are also
available.