Course Descriptions

Academic Reading 1 - ARD1001

Course Description
Academic Reading 1001 (ARD 1001) is a 75-hour intensive reading course designed for students with a TOEFL score between 420 and 477.  The course adopts a learned-centered communicative approach, and covers the following:  developing basic dictionary and vocabulary skills, effective reading strategies, and speed reading. 

Course Objectives
ARD 1001 aims to help students

• develop their reading skills, enrich their vocabulary;
• comprehend complex reading material;
• reinforce and integrate the other skills (grammar, writing and speaking);
• expose them to culturally diverse and authentic material.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
By the end of the course, students will be able to

1. make predictions about text contents;
2. skim texts for main ideas;
3. scan for details;
4. to distinguish between main idea and supporting details;
5. survey texts to identify the overall structure of a text;
6. enrich their word stock;
7. increase their reading speed;
8. guess the meaning of unfamiliar  words;
9. summarize short texts;
10. make inferences;
11. distinguish facts from opinions and judgments;
12. orally react to reading material.

Evaluation

Quizzes & Homework up to Midterm exam                  20%
Midterm exam                                                              20%
Quizzes & Homework                                                  20%
Final exam                                                                    30%
Teacher evaluation                                                        10%

Course Materials

• Mosaic 2, Brenda Wegmann et al., 4th ed. 2002.
• English Vocabulary In Use, Michael McCarthy & Felicity O’Dell, 2002
• Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary