Unicert IV Part 2 How the course works

Unicert IV Part 2 How the course works 1

Office hours • Wednesday from 1700 -1900 in G 40 C-253. • Website: • www. ovgu. de/evans All the information you need about this course is here. 2

Attendance • Attendance at all lessons is compulsory. Absence for genuine reasons such as illness, a Blockseminar or urgent family matters is permissible on two occasions, but a copy of, for example, the relevant doctor’s certificate will be required, unless you attend a parallel lesson in the same week. Please consult with me in advance if at all possible. 3

Communication • The main material for my classes – reading texts of specific authors – is to be found and copied in the Baracke Copyshop (folder "Evans Unicert IV") • I will normally inform you of any additional material we will be using in class by e-mail. • You should consult my website every weekend before the next class as I shall post reading texts, tasks or provide information for the following week then. • Link: working with texts 4

Weekly timetable • • • There will be 10 -12 weeks of lessons, starting in the 2 nd week of the semester and finishing mid-June In June-July you will have the reading/writing/listening examinations You will do your own presentation in the designated "presentation course" 5

Exams • • • There are 3 separate exams plus one presentation Listening Comprehension (2 parts, 45 -60 min) Reading Comprehension + Summary (2 hrs 15 mins) Writing / Academic Essay (2 hrs) Presentation (minimum 30 mins speaking time + 10/15 mins discussion) 6

Reading/Writing Exam • • The reading/ writing exams will be in June/July. Dates and rooms will be announced closer to the time. 7

Reading Comprehension exam You are allowed up to 135 minutes for this exam. Comprehension questions have to be answered in English on an unseen text (or texts) of up to 1500 words approx. Dictionaries, mono- and bilingual, are allowed for this part of the exam. Question types may include pure comprehension, vocabulary in context, and short summaries. A summary of approx. 90 -100 words must also be tackled. 8

Reading Exam tips Most answers need to be short. In previous exams, some candidates have read the texts too slowly or in too much detail; others have written overly long answers: answers should be concise and relevant. 9

Writing Exam (1) You are allowed 2 hours for this exam. You have to write ONE essay of min. 500 words, quoting, where relevant, from the reading text(s) given you for this task. Essays shorter than the minimum word count will fail. At the end of the exam you must count the words written and write the word count at the end of the essay. 10

Writing Exam (2) There is a choice of titles. You can bring both a bilingual and a monolingual dictionary (e. g. an Advanced Learners‘ Dictionary) to the writing exam. Electronic dictionaries are now officially not allowed. 11

Practice essays • • • There will be 2 timed practice essays in the lesson time. Please allow a full 100 -110 minutes for this practice and bring a dictionary. Paper will be provided Week 5 Practice Week 6 Tutorials Week 9 Practice Week 10 Tutorials Week 11 Listening practice 12

Essay tutorials • After the practice essay in the following week class will be replaced by individual tutorials so that we can look at your essays and discuss any other exam issues • Tutorials will be in our teaching room unless announced otherwise. 13

Listening Exam The listening exam will take place at the end of June. Times and dates and rooms will be announced. Most probably the listening exam will take place in your class time and in your class room. The format of the listening exam is as follows: Part One – BBC World Service News Part Two – Cambridge Listening, 2 separate pieces 14

Presentation dates Presentations will run according to the schedule given to you by your presentation class teacher You are, of course, welcome to come and discuss your plans for the presentation with me or others if you feel the need 15

Exam Administration You will be informed about completion of the registration to the UNIcert 4 exams. Once you are registered, you must take the exams. If you miss the exams without good reason, you will be recorded as a “fail”. If, for any reason, you are forced to withdraw from the exams - or any single one of them – in this semester, you must apply for permission to withdraw in writing to the Exam Board of the SPRZ. Please note that it is possible to retake Uni. CERT exams twice if you fail at the first attempt. However, a second retake must be applied for officially (and can be refused). 16

Academic Papers For those of you who are waiting for results: I will respond to e-mail enquiries and will inform people as and when papers are ready to be picked up and discussed. It usually takes a while for all the papers to be corrected. The Academic Paper counts – as do each of the other exams – for 20% of the final mark for UC 4. 17

finis If you have any questions, mail or ask. 18