Reaching Out: Communicating Research across disciplinary boundaries

 PURPOSE

This class is designed to improve students’ oral and written communication skills for the twin purposes of interdisciplinarity and popularization. Students will improve their skills through a combination of advice and exercises. The advice that students will receive is derived from the most up-to-date theoretical work and empirical studies on how audiences respond to presentations and how readers process textual information. The exercises will give students the opportunity to put into practice the advice they are given, so that they can enjoy immediate benefits from taking this class. Students should note, however, that their communication skills will significantly improve only through sustained practice long after this class is over.

 CONTENTS

Each session will be devoted both to oral communication and to written communication. The first two classes will provide students with a general approach to and with general advice on oral and written communication, while the following seven classes will put this approach and this advice into practice through topical exercises. Finally, the last two classes will be devoted to the written and oral exams. Besides practicing their oral and written communication skills, students will also practice their reading and listening skills during each session. Students will therefore have the opportunity to improve all the skills necessary to taking the Cambridge English: C1 Advanced exam.

 ASSESSMENT

During the semester, students will write a critical analysis of a scientific TED Talk and will deliver a TED-like presentation introducing their field of study to a general audience. These two activities will make up their continuous assessment grade, which represents 50% of the overall grade for this class. For the final exams, students will have to summarize a key paper from their field in a way which is accessible to specialists from other disciplines, and will then have to present this paper to an audience of students and researchers from their own field. The written and oral parts will each make up half of the final exams grade, which represents the other 50% of the overall grade for this class.