This 14 week course increases international students’ awareness of basic American cultural values and helps them understand the origins of those values and how they affect various aspects of life in the United States. The course places a strong emphasis on reading and listening comprehension of academic American English, speaking, writing and critical thinking. The vocabulary level is in the range of 3,000 to 4,000 words with emphasis on the Academic Word List. Grammatical structures are not controlled, but are level-appropriate.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

• demonstrate understanding of main ideas and supporting details within cultural / academic information context;
• recognize academic vocabulary and collocations in context;
• make predictions about the content based on the headlines / charts / pictures;
• scan the text for necessary cultural information;
• exercise critical thinking, assess information, compare alternative points of view, identify potential problems and solutions