New language classes proves popular with students
Students in the school of science can combine their language learning with one of their applied physics courses, and it鈥檚 proving popular with the students and their lecturers. The language course runs parallel to the physics course, using some of the physics course material to teach and practice English language and communication skills. This cooperation between the Language Centre and the Department of Applied Physics started in 2017 and given its continuing success, plans are underway to run the course in the spring of 2020.
鈥淚 really benefited from scientific presentation training in English,鈥 said Antti, one of the students in the 2019 class. 鈥淢ost of my presentation training at high school was in Finnish and didn鈥檛 focus on technical topics, so the specific training was valuable鈥
The Aalto university English language course (LC-1117) focuses on the students鈥 ability to produce written and spoken work in English. Meanwhile the applied physics course 鈥淭he Structure of Matter鈥 teaches students principles of materials science and modelling. The courses together let students earn credits for both courses simultaneously working with the same material.
The students were overwhelmingly positive about the fact that they can get points for two classes from studying overlapping material. 鈥淲e read the material more thoroughly than if it were just a physics class, meaning we understood it more鈥 said Tuomas, another student.
Professor Adam Foster, who runs the physics course with Professor Robin Ras, said 鈥淭he language skills the students learn dovetail nicely with the physics we want to teach them, we鈥檙e really happy with how this course operates鈥
鈥淔rom an English teacher鈥檚 point of view, I find this integrated way of teaching language much more effective for developing academic communication skills," said Laura Mendoza, Aalto University english language lecturer "Students have an easier time with the communication tasks when the contents are something they are dealing with anyhow and they seem to be more motivated with the English part too. Although initially it takes more time to plan and design an integrated language course, it is definitely worth it鈥
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