English Communication Skills

Offered By: Tsinghua University via edX

Course Description

Overview

Do you want to learn English, including English listening, speaking, reading and writing, in both your daily life as well as in academic situations? Do you want to communicate with English native speakers fluently? Do you want to read and write better in English?

Welcome to our “English Communication Skills” program.

This program is specially designed for English as a Second Language Learners (elementary, intermediate, and advanced). No prior knowledge is required for these courses. These English courses, Conversational English skills, Just Reading and Writing in English, and General Academic English, will not only help you have a good knowledge of conversational English skills in your daily life, but also improve your reading and writing ability required for educational or vocational purposes. We invite you to learn with our instructors and friends from different countries in the videos, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and Columbia. Are you ready? Let’s go!

The following interesting topics will be covered in each course:

1.Course 1 focuses on the topics of meeting new people, the people in your life, eating in and eating out, the reason to learn English, good times and bad times, hobbies, feelings, and staying healthy. It will prepare you to be able to communicate better in English in a wide range of daily situations and become more fluent and confident in using the language from basic words and expressions.

2. Course 2 centered on the topics of learning, university, cultural differences, cities, education, manners, personal communication, and purpose of living. It will prepare you to have a good knowledge of primary and intermediate English reading and writing skills for different situations in your daily life from practical reading and writing examples.

3. Course 3 concentrated on the topics of cultural studies, life science, art, man and nature, social issues, engineering and technology, psychology, economics and management. It will prepare you to be familiar with general academic English learning skills for your academic career, covering all aspects of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The detailed explanations for texts and academic English skills with vivid examples will provide you with a great atmosphere to improve your academic English learning in an efficient way.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Conversational English Skills | 生活英语听说

Learn how to effectively communicate in English and improve your conversational language skills. 你想与native speaker无障碍交流吗？让中外老师和50多位美国、英国、爱尔兰、加拿大、澳大利亚、哥伦比亚的朋友，带你领略一次不一样的英语学习之旅吧。

Course 2: Just Reading and Writing in English | 生活英语读写

Learn how to read and write in English in the context of lectures and academic texts. 以读促写，以写辅读！掌握正确的阅读技巧和写作技巧，让你实现一次英语读写的飞跃！

Course 3: General Academic English | 生活英语进阶

Do you want to join in academic communication on international conferences and read academic papers? Join us on a journey in academic English!

Courses

12 reviews
10 weeks, 2-4 hours a week, 2-4 hours a week
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Are you finding it difficult to start the conversation, or find the right words when communicating in English? Do you know how to start and end conversations in a polite way? Do you want to learn more about American, British, Canadian, Australian, South Korean, Colombian, and Chinese cultures? If so, you’ve come to the right course!

The most important function of language is communication. In communication, we need to know how to start a topic that the other party is interested in, answer other people's questions, and complete a conversation naturally and smoothly. This course selects 8 themes and is taught by more than 50 teachers and students of all ages from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Colombia, and China, using the most authentic expressions and the purest English in real scenes, Take you to talk about all aspects of daily life and study.

This course is divided into eight units, each unit has a theme, namely:

1. Introduction and exchange of personal information
2. Our family and friends
3. Food and meals
4. Purpose and methods of English learning 5.
Holiday activities and unforgettable experiences 6.
Interests and hobbies
7. Emotional expression
8. Stay healthy

Each topic consists of more than ten dialogues and group discussions, foreign teachers’ introduction to Chinese and Western cultural differences, Chinese teachers’ explanations of key vocabulary and sentence patterns, listening comprehension exercises and oral tests. Through study and practice, you will be able to converse freely with your English-speaking friends and discuss any issues related to the topic. There are many ways to study this course. English learners can continuously accumulate language materials in the process of repeatedly listening and reading dialogues, and practice dialogues with friends around you or learners in the same course; English teachers can choose appropriate topics in this course and organize students to Listening and speaking training, organize efficient classes. Maybe you can't understand the entire content of each conversation, you just need to understand the general idea. As the course progresses, you will understand more and more. Let's take a leap in English listening and speaking together.
This course was funded by the Hong Kong Wei Sun Education Fund and Google during the production process. We would like to express our gratitude to you.
1 review
15 weeks, 2-4 hours a week, 2-4 hours a week
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Reading enriches our life and writing enables us to express our thoughts. Being skillful in reading and writing allows you to better acquire and communicate information.

This course focuses on 8 themes:
- learning
- university
- culture
- city
- education
- behavior theory
- communication
- meaning of life
For each theme, there are two texts, key words analysis, reading skills, guest interviews, composition tutorials, writing workshops, and literature tutors.

Join us and understand the beauty of language.

As two very important aspects of a language, reading allows us to acquire rich knowledge, and writing allows us to express our inner thoughts. Mastering correct reading skills and writing skills can enable us to better obtain and express information. This course is led by Chinese and foreign teachers and Tsinghua students to explore the English world in real life scenarios.

This course starts from eight themes including learning, university, culture, city, education, behavioral theory, interpersonal communication and the meaning of life. Each theme consists of theme texts (two articles), explanation of key words and phrases, explanation of reading skills, guest interviews, It consists of modules such as composition correction and writing skills explanation, introduction to English learning methods, and literary appreciation. Thematic text modules revolve around carefully selected topics, allowing you to experience rich and colorful culture and broaden your horizons. They are also equipped with corresponding explanations of key words and sentences to make your English knowledge base larger; the reading skills module is developed in the form of teacher-student interaction. Teachers and English major graduate students will lead everyone to discuss the secrets of English reading from the perspective of learners; the guest interview module invites three guest teachers to introduce and share learning, culture and other aspects; the writing part includes composition correction and To explain writing skills, we select topic-related CET-4 and CET-6 composition test questions, each with two real student writing cases, and explain writing skills in the form of correcting essays; the English learning methods module is conducted in the form of interviews, and is shared by international student teaching assistants. English learning experience; the literature appreciation module selects eight literary masterpieces, allowing learners to explore the ocean of literature through teacher-student interaction.

Feel the charm of language with us, and let us achieve a leap in English reading and writing!
0 reviews
8 weeks, 3-4 hours a week, 3-4 hours a week
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It is an essential ability for academic researchers to master the academic skills and join in academic communications. This course encourages you to read, write and share your ideas while studying English for academic purposes.

The course is divided into 8 research topics, involving life sciences, art, society, engineering, psychology, economics, management, and architecture.

In this course, there are:

academic words and analysis of texts

learning strategies

seminars on academic reading and writing

mini-conferences on academic topics

simulation of academic reports

techniques for academic writing

This course will help you improve the academic English skills. Besides, with students from different disciplines sharing their insights on the research, we hope to get you prepared to join in seminars and mini-conferences. Come and join us on this journey of academic English!

Taught by

Fang Yang, Glenn M. Davis, Thomas H. Piachaud, John Olbrich, Jason Driskill and Wenxia Zhang