Course outline

The principal aim of the programme is to enable students to linguistically and academically negotiate the transition from school to university and be prepared for the demands of an undergraduate degree programme in an appropriate Humanities & Social Sciences discipline.

The programme syllabus is designed around the acquisition of core academic skills and literacy development that underpins successful higher education outcomes: academic research, ICT, critical thinking and the promotion of self-awareness.

In-course written, reading, listening and oral assessment is built in to modules through general interaction between tutors and students through small group tutorials or individual tutorials/appraisals.

Assessments

Modes of assessments include essay/report writing, oral presentation (group or individual), in-class quizzes or take-home exercises. These form of assessments is considered fundamental to a student’s ability to communicate ideas and evidence with clarity, relevance and logic in a planned and organised manner. Plain writing style, syntax and grammar are core skills that can be enhanced to support the maturing of individual students’ composition and thus academic and transferable proficiency.

Oral presentations, whether part of formal or informal assessment practice, are encouraged within all modules as they promote, among others, transferable skills and can identify those students who may be plagiarising material. It is advised, however, that they should not make up more than 60% of the final module mark unless as part of the learning rational.

Oral group presentations should ideally contain no more than five (5) students, unless specific reasoning is applied. Time limits must be upheld by tutors so as to ensure all students have the same opportunity to perform. Final summative examination normally adheres to closed-book, invigilated, timed conditions and takes place during allocated exam periods of a programme.

This is an intensive programme with a minimum 16 hours per week and a corresponding number of ongoing assessment tasks designed to provide a scaffolded structure for students at this entry level to Higher Education.