Course Objective and Description

This Freshman English course, designed for students of non-English-major, intends to help students achieve the following goals:

a. acquire better and more effective listening and reading skills through intensive practices;

b. become a citizen sensitive to world affairs after being exposed to American and British cultures and update international news;

c. be familiar with academic and news English.

Course Requirements:

1.Bring a cassette to Listening sessions.

2.Active class participation.

3.Since the instructor values students’ attendance very much, attendance will be checked every week. Any student who is more than 20 minutes late in joining class will be counted as absent. A missed consulting appointment  also counts as an absence from class. If a student is absent from class more than five times throughout the semester, with or without sick notice or any other proof, s/he risks being excluded from and failing the course. If a student must miss a class, please notify the instructor by email in advance, and consult our class website for any missed materials. Bear in mind that the instructor is not on email 24/7, so your message may not receive an immediate response. The instructor does not accept text messages or phone calls, either.

4.Students are expected to be fully prepared to participate when class begins—that is, to have read and thought about whatever readings were assigned. Late submission of any assignment won’t be accepted for whatever reason. The instructor considers such lateness extremely disruptive to the class schedule and discussions, and is unfair to the other students who do participate and hand in work on time, so late submission will be penalized by receiving a “0” and will not be read or graded. Please note that excuses related to computer mishaps won’t be accepted either. Note also that homework that is copied from another source (including your classmate) will receive an “0”.

Grading Policy:

Grades will be computed according to the following formula:

Attendance and Class Participation                                                        10%

Mid-term and Final Examination                                                            45%

Take-home Assignments, In-Class Quizzes, and GEPT practices          40%

Additional points                                                                                     5%