One-day course "Paragraph as a Text Building Block"
Many people think that it is quite easy to write a paragraph in English if you know grammar and vocabulary quite well. However, that is not the case. One has to clearly understand how an English paragraph can be organized. Due to cultural reasons and writing conventions, the development of ideas in an English paragraph differs from that in a Russian paragraph. To raise such awareness, we are offering a one-day course devoted to this fundamental unit of any text. We will look into different structural types of paragraphs, pay attention to writing the topic sentence, and identify how to make the text coherent and cohesive. We will learn how to put forward ideas effectively and concisely, organize the text into easy-to-perceive blocks, and make smooth and logical transitions between the paragraphs.
Trainer: Tatiana Martseva, Ph.D. in Germanic languages, Associate Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, HSE University, holds CPE, DELTA (Cambridge), FTBE (Pearson) international certificates. Tatiana has over 20 years of experience in teaching English for specific purposes, academic writing, presentation skills, cross-cultural communication, linguistics, and country studies. Her areas of research interest include modern English language, stylistics, teacher training, and digital technologies in teaching.
Dates: October 11 (8 a/h)
Time: 10:00 - 17:30 (with breaks)
Format: face-to-face
Location: 11 Pokrovsky boulevard, K-416
English level requirement: B1+
How do I get accepted? You should be a full-time employee from teaching or research staff at the HSE. The course is offered on a competitive basis. Please, fill out an online registration form and write a motivation letter in English (about 300 words). Please describe your experience of writing academic texts in English and the challenges you have faced. Explain how the course will help you overcome these challenges and how the new skills are relevant to your teaching and / or research. The motivation letter should clearly demonstrate that the applicant has read the course syllabus and is willing to make time to do all course tasks.
For more information on how to write a strong motivation letter, please read the AWC blog.
NB: We do not accept AI-generated motivation letters. The purpose of the motivation letter is to gauge the candidate's motivation, level of English, and writing skills, which determine the effectiveness of the course.