English Communication Skills for Information TechnologyLaajuus (3 ECTS)

Objective

On completion of the course the student will be familiar with ICT related vocabulary and will understand the main content of texts associated with the field. The student will be able to acquire field-specific information from English sources and evaluate their reliability. The student will have an adequate knowledge of formal and technical writing and purchasing process to compose enquiries, offers, orders and letters of complaint within his or her own field. The student will be able to deal with work-related communication situations, e.g. negotiations and meetings.

Content

Field-specific English; both written and oral.
Characteristics of formal and technical writing.
Information acquisition from field-specific sources in English.
English for corporate communications, business writing.
Developing oral presentation and communication skills.
Negotiations and meeting procedures.

Assessment criteria, satisfactory (1)

In communication situations related to his/her field the student:

• trusts his/her communication skills to manage professional communication events using inquiries and relatively short speech acts
• understands the communication partner enough to be able to act and verbalize in accordance with the task in question
• expresses his/her thoughts simply, mainly coherently, and relatively understandably, even if there may be deficiencies in professional terminology and structural inaccuracies, which may interfere with full understanding
• draws up simple, formatted texts independently and extensive texts using linguistic help tools
Minimum requirement: European Framework of Reference level B2

Assessment criteria, good (3)

In communication situations related to his/her field the student:

• trusts his/her communication skills to manage in the professional context in line with the objectives set for the task
• interacts professional content as an equal partner with an independent language user
• takes the initiative in professional discourse and can take into account participants’ cultural and language backgrounds to some degree and the demands of the context
• expresses him/herself promptly in clear and detailed manner
• uses professional terminology to the point
• pronounces English clearly with matching stress and intonation
• produces genres for different purposes, where linguistic inaccuracy does not interfere with understanding

Assessment criteria, excellent (5)

In communication situations related to his/her field the student:

• trusts his/her communications skills to allow him/her to take initiative in communication events following the discourse practice of the field
• interacts clearly and fluently as an equal partner with a proficient speaker
• takes initiative also in demanding professional communications where participants’ cultural and language backgrounds need to be taken into account
• expresses him/herself effectively and accurately
• uses professional terminology to the point
• pronounces English clearly, with stress and rhythm matching the total message
• has the ability to produce several genres, which are clear, well structured and effective