Course Topics
The course draws on themes of academic, personal and professional interest to students to include eco-efficient products and services, sustainable production, consumption, embodied educational approaches, and biophilia-inspired life choices. Such themes aim to provide meaningful contexts for the development of students’ academic and more broadly communicative English language competences so as to enable the effective construction and sharing of knowledge within academic as well as wider communities. The course will therefore focus on written and oral features pertaining to academic and narrative discourses in English, as well as on their effectiveness as regards the communication, dissemination and sharing of transdisciplinary knowledge in a range of contexts. Topics include: - Structure and organization of a range of programme-relevant texts: planning, drafting, and completing; - Developing effective authorial 'voices' in a range of discourses; - Common grammatical structures and lexis in academic texts, coherence and cohesion devices, paragraph structure and linking paragraphs; - Specialized terminology; - Referencing and citation styles; - Paraphrasing and summarising; - Critical reading of programme-related literature and analysis of scientific discourses; - Developing embodied communication skills for effectively sharing and disseminating knowledge resulting from projects/other through oral and poster presentations; - Free University of Bozen-Bolzano Guidelines for the ethically-informed use of artificial intelligence tools

Teaching format
The English 1 course lectures feature a number of interlinked activities which aim to scaffold the students’ developing understanding and competences. This is done through the interactive presentation and discussion of central principles of academic/other discourses, through exploring individual participants’ learning needs and characteristics, and through individual/small-group reflections on how such principles can be applied in students’ own work. This will then inform a range of written and spoken tasks informed by lecturer and peer feedback. Additionally, students will draft and complete a range of programme- and student-relevant texts as well as plan an oral and/or poster presentation on freely-chosen topics/projects, to be shared with the group during an oral end-of-course presentation. Detailed information as regards the course principles, learning/teaching activities and tasks, formative feedback, and assessment modalities will be provided during the first lecture and clarified throughout the course, with additional support available to all students through Teams tutorials.

Educational objectives
Knowledge and understanding: Students will have developed their own individual project practice and will be able to: - better understand the social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of projects and contexts - better understand the relationships between environment, economy, society and politics - better understand through which features of written and spoken academic English such understandings can be meaningfully communicated to different audiences Making judgements: - students will have extended their ability to reflect on and critically assess their own participation and contributions during the course - students will have extended their ability to adopt appropriate features of written and spoken academic English in different contexts - students will have grasped principles of ethical use of AI as set out in Unibz guidelines Communication skills: Students will have developed their ability to: - communicate convincingly with different target audiences through a range of academic English modalities - present projects persuasively and confidently - justify their creative, strategic and linguistic decisions - communicate and collaborate productively within the student group Learning skills: Students will have extended their ability to: - work both independently and collaboratively to inform their personal learning and development in a range of contexts through observation, listening, and dialogue with fellow students and the course lecturer - work both independently and collaboratively to inform their personal learning and development in a range of contexts through reading, studying, and engaging in a range of writing projects, with peer and lecturer feedback - work both independently and collaboratively to support the learning and development of the whole group as a community of learning/practice - draw on a range of strategies and resources to support them in their current and lifelong learning

Additional educational objectives and learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have expanded and deepened: - their understanding of the structures of academic/other programme-relevant texts, including how to plan, draft, and organize them effectively; - their ability to recognize and apply typical sentence and paragraph structures in a range of texts; - their understanding of and ability to apply the concept of register in academic contexts; - their knowledge of written academic English and discipline-specific terminology; - their ability to identify and use key functions in scientific texts, such as illustration, comparison, explanation; - their ability to apply appropriate referencing and citation styles, paraphrase and summarize sources, and use coherence and cohesion devices effectively; - their ability to plan, structure, and deliver effective oral/poster presentations, and interpret posters, talks, and texts critically; - their ability to adopt and adapt effective phrases to support audience comprehension and engagement in oral/poster presentations; - their oral communication and presentation skills and overall confidence in public speaking; - their ability to evaluate processes, ideas, and theories, describe methodologies, formulate opinions, present arguments, and link transdisciplinary knowledges; - their adherence to the ethical use of AI tools as stated in the Unibz guidelines: https://records.unibz.it/regolamenti?prog=1/25&viewdoc=1

Assessment
Continuous assessment (all students): - students' active engagement in the individual/collaborative course activities, written assignments and any related oral presentations undertaken in agreement with the course lecturer; - benefiting from the lecturer’s written/oral formative feedback; - planning and presenting an end-of-course oral and/or poster presentation on freely chosen topics of academic/personal interest. Final oral examination (all students): - discussion of the themes, learning activities, lecturer-provided formative feedback, and personal learning trajectories experienced during the course. Non-attending students: Individual students are strongly recommended to contact the lecturer through Teams/email at the beginning of the semester and throughout the programme (as relevant) for student-specific written/oral coursework, feedback, and assistance modalities to be jointly decided.

Evaluation criteria
- Students’ active engagement in a range of learning activities and tasks; - Individual students' contribution to their community of learning as jointly decided with course lecturer; - Students' ability to understand, analyse, evaluate and apply specific academic/other English conventions; - Students' ability to draw on knowledge and content from various relevant sources in a personal and critical way, expressing their understanding and making personal contributions through appropriate academic English/narrative conventions in their written and spoken output; - Students' awareness of relevant lifelong learning strategies and resources; - Students’ willingness to attend to and benefit from the lecturer’s written and spoken feedback; - Participants’ ability to deploy programme-related terminology and discourses at B2+ Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) level. Assessment weighting (all students): Written coursework: 40%; Final oral presentations: 40%; Final oral examination: 20% Students with doubts or queries concerning the course principles, format and modalities, attendance, assessment modalities/other are warmly encouraged to contact the course lecturer (Teams/email) at all times throughout their MA programme.

Required readings

Davis, M., Davis, K. J., & Dunagan, M. M. (2012). Scientific papers and presentations (3rd ed.). Academic Press.

Flowerdew, J. (2000). Discourse Community, Legitimate Peripheral Participation, and the Nonnative-English-Speaking Scholar. TESOL Quarterly, 34(1), 127–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/3588099

Graham, A. (2018). English for Academic Purposes: A Handbook for Students (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi-org.libproxy.unibz.it/10.4324/9781041055396

Paterson, K., Wedge, R. (2013). Oxford Grammar for EAP. Oxford University Press.

Wallwork, A., Southern, A., & SpringerLink. (2020). 100 Tips to Avoid Mistakes in Academic Writing and Presenting (1st ed. 2020.). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44214-9

Supplementary readings

Selected chapters: Bedeker, M., Makoelle, T. M., Manan, S. A., & SpringerLink. (2025). Exploring Academic Writing as Social Practice Institutional Goals, Complexities and Possibilities in Central Asia (Michelle. Bedeker, T. Michael. Makoelle, & S. Abdul. Manan, Eds.; 1st ed. 2025.). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01210-4

Gillett, A., Hammond, A., & Martala, M. (2009). Successful Academic Writing. Pearson.

Skern, T. (2019). Writing Scientific English: A workbook. Facultas AG.

Further information
A wide range of programme-/student relevant texts, sources and English development resources/strategies will be provided and exemplified throughout the course.