Courses

Communication studies show that some non-native accent and pronunciation features can undermine and even break down communication in English. However, in most cases, miscommunication is not so much caused by a heavy non-native accent, but by the transfer of pronunciation elements that are specific to the phonological system of each language. 

“My Fair Accent” 16-hour pronunciation course is specially designed for Russian professionals who use English as a lingua franca in international communication. It focuses on the main divergences between English and Russian sound systems. The course aims to work on the key pronunciation elements (vowels and consonants) that are likely to cause intelligibility problems or may create negative attitudes towards Russian speakers in international communication contexts. 

The course is primarily viewed as a practical training and will end up with a one-on-one test session at which learners will receive individual feedback and recommendations for future development.

Trainer: Tatiana Skopintseva is Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Ph.D. (Kandidat Nauk) and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and a former IATEFL PronSIG committee member. 

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “Tatiana is just marvelous! She was making us feel involved and motivated. Thanks to AWC for finding such a professional instructor!”

• “Thank you so much! It was very interesting to deal with my own pronunciation mistakes and to practice pronouncing individual sounds in words.”

• “It turned out that the course helped to pay attention to pronunciation in general (even for my Russian). I am very much looking forward to continuing to improve my pronunciation. I am very pleased to have taken this course.”

We write emails more frequently than papers, books, and various reports. Quite often, it is the effectiveness of those emails that determines the fate of our papers, books, reports, conference talks, collaboration projects, guest lectures, etc. In this course, we will look at finer aspects of emailing in English. We will start by revising format, structure, and standard types of emails; then we will take a closer look at the types that will be more relevant to course participants. We will discuss the basics of politeness theory, compare Russian and English emailing conventions, and practice the language used in emails. We will pay particular attention to solving problems by emails along with strategies for avoiding inappropriately straightforward and combative expressions, unintentional accusations, and making the emails polite, but firm and effective. We will also discuss and practice editing techniques which will help spot and correct careless mistakes before hitting the send button. 

Trainer: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, and genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Participants' Feedback:

• “The main issue I have made progress on is how to answer both firmly and politely. Besides, I'm happy to get a handout with the email clichés and to train my skills in using these clichés. Now I feel much more confident when writing a comprehensive email.”
•  “Thank you so much for the wonderful course! Although I’m really busy now, I managed to find the time for classes, since they are extremely useful for me. Now I would like to take a similar course in Russian!”
•  “I liked everything and I would like to thank Tatyana for the work that she did. It was flawless and very professional.”

Is there a specific number of words that you need to know to write well? Yes and no. While the number is important, it is the quality that can make a bigger difference. In this one-day course, we will discuss how to build your own vocabulary system, what words we need in order to write well, and what it means to actually know these words. We will start by looking at effective ways of noticing, selecting, examining, and storing vocabulary items. Then we will share best practices of memorizing and revising words. We will also experiment with reliable sources, techniques, and tools that can enhance each step of the vocabulary learning process. As a result, course participants will develop their own strategy of identifying and studying vocabulary items and start building their own discipline-related glossary.

NB: Please bring a research paper in English on the topic relevant to your interests.

Trainer: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features, and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

The purpose of this highly interactive, four-session course is to explore the steps involved in preparing a manuscript for publication in an English-language scholarly journal. Each session will have a theme; however, all sessions will include individual and peer-feedback activities that help participants strengthen the advanced English-language writing skills expected in their own fields. In addition to the four workshop sessions, participants will have the optional opportunities to engage in three 1-hour asynchronous interaction sessions with each other and to have one-on-one meetings with Dr. Leslie for individualized feedback.

The goals of the course are for participants to enhance their professional writing competencies and apply these competencies to preparing a manuscript for publication in a scholarly journal.  

NB: Participants will be required to have a working draft that they would like to adapt and revise for publication. (This draft can be a previously submitted and rejected manuscript, an old graduate-school course paper, or a chapter or unpublished manuscript from a graduate thesis.)

Session Topics:
Session 1: Fulfilling the Expectations of Scholarly Journals
Session 2: Building on Writing Models
Session 3: Intensive Revision Strategies and Applications
Session 4: Intensive Peer-Feedback Strategies and Applications

Trainer: Leslie Dupont, Ph.D., earned her degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Teaching of English in 1999. She is also an experienced editor and writer, having published two textbooks on writing. With over 30 years of teaching experience, Leslie is especially suited to her roles as both a writing coach and an English Language Specialist to scholars and professionals across cultures and disciplines. Over the years, she has worked with populations from across disciplines, cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, gender identities, and ages in both higher education and the private sector. At present, she works directly with students, staff, and faculty in the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona. Leslie is experienced in individual, small-group, and large-group teaching and workshop contexts, both online and in person. She is strongly committed to inclusivity and individual empowerment. Through teaching and coaching, Leslie takes a strong mentoring approach, encouraging independence and confidence in writing.

Course Program

Participants' Feedback:

• “One of the most valuable aspects was the dynamics of the group sessions. In addition to 30-minute individual sessions with Dr. Leslie and the content she shared, an experience that contributed to my growth was the interaction with my peers. The sessions were designed in such a way that all participants felt comfortable contributing to the discussion. This created a conducive environment for the exchange of ideas among colleagues.”
• “Actually, I am surprised and amazed! I have received much more than I expected. I expected to receive only lectures and instructions; however, I gained valuable discussions, knowledge, and an understanding that I am not alone with my problems. A special thanks to Dr. Leslie; she has created a climate of trust and support.”
• “Thank you very much for this course! It was the first time I participated in such a course, and I gained a lot of knowledge, especially about the etiquette of writing emails and about reviewing.”

Writing an English-medium research paper requires producing a strong publishable text. This new writing course helps you improve your writing skills one step further by highlighting the core aspects of a strong text. The key goal is to analyze how you actually write in terms of language use and meaning construction and, considering your strengths and weaknesses, make an action plan to advance your writing abilities. We will employ a text-oriented ethnographic approach to explore your writing skills; we will also learn how to use individually generated corpus and  AI services to assist you in writing. 

The course first covers the macro rhetorical aspects of the research paper genre by linking them to the disciplinary epistemologies and ways of making meaning and knowledge. Next, we explore the diversity of ways to rhetorically craft ideas at the level of subsections and paragraphs. Finally, we explore the diversity of sentence types, lexis, and linguistic mechanisms that can help you make your text linguistically stronger.

Trainer: Natalia Smirnova, Ph.D. in teaching English as a foreign language, Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages Department at the HSE University in St. Petersburg. She has designed and taught courses in Research Writing, Writing for Publication, Rhetoric, Argumentation and Writing both for students and researchers. Natalia has a strong research interest in the social perspectives on writing, ESOL pedagogies, and writing assessment.

Participants' Feedback:

• “First of all, I finally understood the differences between sentence structure in Russian and English. Secondly, the trainer gave us very useful information about frequent mistakes made by researchers in academic texts, which allowed me to spot my mistakes and fix them. Thirdly, I also understood the main features of texts in English. I learnt the main rule: the simpler the test, the better for my reader.”
• “The course has helped me regain focus on my theses and on my audience. I’ve also learnt to assess my texts' consistency with the existing social norms of my field. Finally, I've improved the skill of expressing my thoughts in a concise way.”
• “The course has been very interactive as well as constructive in terms of building on our existing writing skills. The tasks were helpful in providing hands-on experience and connecting theory with practice. The feedback from the trainer has been of great value, as it helped to understand areas for improvement and gain technical backing to address them and improve further. A very well-planned and executed course.”

The purpose of this one-day practice-oriented course is to learn about various AI tools that can boost your academic writing skills. We are going to work on the literature review section of your manuscript, using AI instruments. During the first half of the day, we will generate content with the help of AI-powered research tools and critically examine the strengths and weaknesses of every tool. You will be familiar with the purposes these tools may serve to facilitate research writing. Next, you will spend an hour or so using the research tool that meets your needs and work on your literature review. After the lunch break, we will experiment with several citation and editing AI tools. After trial and critical evaluation, you will make informed decisions on how to use them in your writing. You will also have a chance to revise and edit your literature review using a tool that meets your writing purposes. By the end of the course, you will expand your repertoire of AI-powered writing tools that can facilitate your research writing.

NB: Get ready with a draft of a literature review section of the research paper you are currently working on. It should be work in progress so we can continue working on it using AI tools during the course.

Trainer: Diana Akhmedjanova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Programmes, Institute of Education, HSE. Her research interests include self- and socially regulated learning, academic writing, formative assessment, and research methods. Diana also teaches the Academic Writing course in English at the Institute of Education and continues doing research in this area.

Participants' Feedback:

• "I am very grateful to the trainer for a very capacious, informative course. We would never have found so many useful AI tools ourselves and never have used all their capabilities! Diana also presents all the material with amazing artistry; it is very pleasant to listen to her. And it’s great that the course was held offline; if something didn’t work out, students had the opportunity to immediately clarify with Diana what they were technically doing wrong. This made working on your own article much easier.”
• "It was the most useful course I have taken recently. It was built perfectly, in my opinion. There was a theoretical part; we applied new knowledge straightaway; we were able to compare the tools; we reflected; we discussed all the pluses and minuses of the tools. And the most valuable thing was that by the end of the course, we'd had pdf texts of articles for our research, their summaries, citations, and references. I do appreciate Diana's job. The course is outstanding."
• “I really enjoyed the course. I gained the practical knowledge I need and received support from the trainer. It's so valuable to find useful AI instruments that really work in the endless quantity of AI tools that are so hard to understand. I sincerely thank the Academic Writing Center for your work!”

As there is a variety of journals, including predatory, the author should take a responsible approach to the process of choosing a suitable journal. It is important to understand how wide the coverage of an article can be and how a publication can affect your career generally.

An equally important aspect is writing an article in accordance with the requirements of the selected journal. The language corpus compiled on the basis of publications in the relevant disciplinary field can provide significant assistance in writing for publication.

The goal of the program is to help you analyze language features of articles in your disciplinary fields with regards to the requirements of selected journals.

During the course you will: 

1. choose an international journal for publication

2. annotate three articles for further use in your paper

3. and create a language corpus of articles in your own disciplinary field.

You will be able to identify and further use language and structural features that are expected in your research field.

Trainer: Varvara Sosedova is a member of the National Consortium of Writing Centers. She holds a degree in Philology and has authored a number of publications in Linguistics and Cultural Studies. Her areas of expertise are academic writing, writing grant proposals, and database search. She is a co-author of English for Research Publication Purposes course on Coursera.

Participants' Feedback:

• “AntCorp program is a fascinating tool that I think will be really useful for me.”
• "Now I have a clear idea of how a journal for publication should be selected. I have learned there are electronic tools to organize your references and I'm going to start using them from now on. Generally, I feel more confident now about writing for academic journals."
• “Marvelous teacher whose great communication skills make you feel a part of the group and encourage participation. I want to thank Varvara heartily for her detailed explanations, very patient, efficient, and rapid communication with the group, and cool exercises.”

Public Speaking Crash Course aims to support scholars in their need to give a short, concise, and effective public talk. Some attention will be given to the public talk structure (e.g. self-presentation, "outro," Q&A parts). This information will be delivered via video demonstrations. Participants should expect vocabulary work and a lot of language practice. At the end of the course, each participant will deliver a short presentation, which will be recorded.

Trainer: Zhenya Bakin is a language teacher and CELTA  trainer from Moscow. Zhenya has earned an MA in Education from Norwich Institute for Language Education. Zhenya also studied at the University of Oslo, Norway. He holds Cambridge DELTA focused on EAP. As a Fulbright scholar he lived in the USA where he taught Russian at the college level.  He has experience in teaching both in the private sector and in public schools. Zhenya directed the HSE Academic Writing Center for six years and served as the Head of Foreign Languages in New School, Moscow, for two years. He is also a co-founder of ELephanT project. He has designed a free app for Russian state exam preparation and shot a few demo in-class videos.

Participants' Feedback:

• “It was a very good experience! I received a lot of new information and good practice. Thanks a lot for giving me a chance to take part in the course! Special thanks to the trainer for great timing and handy tips!”
• “I really enjoyed completing the tasks and noticed a remarkable amount of progress gained.”
• “I enjoyed the task of shooting a video. Such practice really increases the level of public presentation skills.”
• “The work was interesting to me because it helped me not only to work on presentation skills, but to take a fresh look at my current work on my research topic.”

We write emails more frequently than papers, books, and various reports. Quite often, it is the effectiveness of those emails that determines the fate of our papers, books, reports, conference talks, collaboration projects, guest lectures, etc. In this advanced one-day course, we will look at finer aspects of emailing in English. We will start by revising the format, structure, and standard types of emails; then we will pay special attention to solving problems by emails. We will also focus on strategies for avoiding inappropriately straightforward and combative expressions, unintentional accusations, and making the emails polite, but firm and effective. We will compare Russian and English emailing conventions, practice the language used in emails, and discuss situations in which emails require a response, and in which they don’t. We will also discuss and practice editing techniques, which will help spot and correct mistakes before hitting the send button. At the end of the intensive course, participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and get group feedback on their challenging emailing cases. Bring your emails, we’ll help!

Trainer: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Participants' Feedback:

• “There is a great balance between activities and theory. It lived up to my expectations. Thanks!”

• "The course was really helpful even in terms of communicating with colleagues and exchanging ideas. Thank you very much again for guiding all the participants during the course."

• “Everything was perfect: the teacher, the participants, and the learning materials. I think the most useful was experience sharing, because you learn how other people cope with different situations.”

Which part of an academic paper does everyone read? It’s definitely an abstract. A well-written abstract can promote the research and its author and ensure their visibility in the academic world. In the one-day course, we will talk about readers of our abstracts and their expectations, common problems with abstracts and ways to avoid them. We’ll discuss main types of abstracts, their components, structure, and useful language for each component that will help you formulate your ideas effectively. We will look at different strategies that will help you make the wording of the abstract as natural as possible. We will also compare conventions in different disciplines and journals, practice writing abstracts and adapting them to different journals, and evaluate them using a set of criteria. Finally, we’ll briefly talk about principles of selecting key words that typically follow an abstract.

Trainer: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, and genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Participants' Feedback:

• “I am grateful for having been given an opportunity to do this informative, well-organized course with a wonderful trainer. I got a lot of useful life hacks concerning the strategies of writing abstracts, the language and content issues.”
• “The takeaway is that one should always consider the readership and journal requirements, and that there are strict guidelines for abstracts. The course was accessible, positive, and engaging. Thank you very much!”
• “We received a clear algorithm of writing an abstract and learnt what to do next (like journals, scope, etc.). Practicing my skills with colleagues was very useful. I could appreciate the importance of feedback not only from fellow researchers, but also from colleagues that are working in a completely different field.”

The purpose of this online course is to teach the basics of research writing. The course program covers the main aspects of successful intercultural academic communication: the usage of academic English by Russian-speaking researchers in their articles, language and speech culture of academic English, argumentative language techniques, academic grammar, and punctuation rules. The aim is to develop skills for writing an empirical research article in regards to culturally and professionally conditioned rhetorical traditions. 

During the course, you will work on your own research paper draft which will be finalized by the end of the course.

Trainer: Natalia Smirnova, Ph.D. in teaching English as a foreign language, Associate Professor, Head of the Foreign Languages Department at the HSE University in St. Petersburg.  She has designed and taught courses in Research Writing, Writing for Publication, Rhetoric, Argumentation and Writing both for students and researchers. Natalia has a strong research interest in the social perspectives on writing, ESOL pedagogies, and writing assessment.

Participants' Feedback:

• “A really informative and useful course. The most important benefits of this course were focusing on the problem gap, ABC statement, and the trainer’s feedback. I had a great opportunity to see my draft from another point of view and understand the form of research discussion with the target audience.”
• “I would like to express my great gratitude to Natalia. The way she helped me look at my research, no one helped me. I was very impressed by the individual consultation. I understood the significance of my research and discovered a new theoretical basis for it. I have received the useful tools and knowledge that will help me write articles in both Russian and English.”
• “I think it's a perfect course for those who haven't started writing the article but already have the data / analysis done. You have a real chance to work intensively and write the article.”

This course is aimed at those who dream of sharing their research with an international research community but are confronted with language-related inhibitions when it comes to writing up their research in English. Participants will learn how to organize their ideas in various sections of an international paper following the IMRaD format. They will also develop a better understanding of what kind of language to use to realize their communicative intentions in line with the norms of the international academic discourse. To aid participants’ exposure to research writing norms within the social disciplines, a range of sample texts from published papers in a variety of social fields will be used, followed by participants’ practice with writing parts of their own text. The course will also be aided by an online platform on writing international publications, with multiple language-related and text analysis activities available for use beyond the timeframes of the course.

Trainer: Vera Dugartsyrenova is an Associate Professor at the HSE School of Foreign Languages. Her research interests include English for Specific and Academic Purposes, blended and distance language learning, academic writing, and intercultural communication. She has designed and taught a variety of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and ESP (English for Specific Purposes) courses to students majoring in linguistics and intercultural communication, mathematics and psychology, academic writing courses for economics, political science, and Asian studies students, as well as blended and online professional development courses for language teachers.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “The most important thing I gained is clear understanding of every part of IMRAD, specific linguistic markers, and tenses. Seems like I can build this structure in my current article.”
• “I think the most important thing was to get the motivation to get started on writing my own paper in English that I was putting off for so long. The materials that were given have so many useful things that I’m curious to dig into them deeper.”
• “Thank you very much! I enjoyed being a participant and learned a lot. The trainer was brilliant. Her materials are very nicely made - useful and understandable.”

This 4-part course aims to provide participants with numerous strategies and opportunities to clearly communicate their research to various audiences. Multiple common genres of oral communication, including elevator pitches, academic interviews, and research talks for a lay audience will be covered in this interactive, practice-oriented course. Participants will also learn and apply several clear speech skills, such as use of voice and body language, that can aid communication across all spoken genres. Participants will have multiple opportunities during each 3-hour session to practice communicating their research and to improve their overall English speaking skills. Between sessions, participants will receive structured, individualized feedback from the trainer in the form of targeted comments designed to push their English to the next level. At the end of the course, each participant will deliver a short, engaging research talk for a non-specialist audience, which will be recorded.

Trainer: Heather Boldt is the Director of the English Language Support Program, Laney Graduate School, Emory University, USA. She has over 20 years’ experience teaching oral communication and writing to international graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, helping them advance their academic and professional language skills. Heather is also Emory’s 3MT® coach, providing participants in this academic speaking competition with strategies for communicating their research clearly to a non-specialist audience. Heather holds a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics and Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Consortium on Graduate Communication; she has also served on International TESOL’s Professional Council, as a SETESOL chair, and as president of Georgia TESOL.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “During this course I was able to practice and develop different skills in communication with potential collaborators, as well as with a lay audience. Due to this course, I have also learned some specific techniques which are extremely helpful in an academic interview.”
• “I am very grateful for such a great opportunity to try these models of public speech and for additional materials that are very useful.”
• “I liked the atmosphere in this course. The trainer did not put pressure on students but really tried her best to create activities and tasks and give examples through which students can learn the material by doing.”

This course is designed for those who are just beginning to write research papers and who would like to know more about the basics of academic writing. The course suits those who are familiar with the principles of forming English sentences and clauses, and have basic skills of using cohesion devices, but experience difficulties in building a logical and cohesive academic text. Participants will learn how to develop the thesis and how to build an argument through explanation, exemplification, and actualization of cause and effect relations in the text. Participants will also get acquainted with the structure of an academic text and will develop the understanding of how to use this structure to establish logic.

* The course is the second part of a program consisting of two consecutive courses. You can also register for the other course Fundamentals of Academic Writing: From Sentence to Paragraph.

Trainer: Natalia Ivanova-Slavianskaia, MSc (Oxford), Ph.D., lecturer of English and Applied Linguistics and the author and instructor of courses in Academic Writing (Department of English Studies of The University of Cyprus, Department of International Relations at SPBU, the Department of Foreign Languages at HSE). In 2018 Natalia completed a M.Sc. course in Applied Linguistics (Teaching English in University Settings) at Oxford University, having explored the problem of Russian learners’ self-regulating writing strategies as the topic of her Masters dissertation. Since 2010, Natalia has been working as a speaking examiner for Cambridge Assessment.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “I want to note not only the content of the course (which is at its best), but also the attitude of the instructor Natalia - one can feel the attention and care with which the materials were prepared, the video was recorded, and the feedback was given.”
• “Thank you for this opportunity to improve my English! I have developed specific skills in world order and sentence structure.”
• “I understood how to write different types of articles in English, and I practiced using various link-words. Moreover, I focused on writing consciously, and it helped me to build a better structure of a paragraph.”

This course is intended for those who are just beginning to write research papers and who would like to know where to start and what the basic principles of academic writing in English are. The course will provide information about the main elements of an English academic text: a clause and a paragraph. Participants will learn how to build simple sentences and clauses in English, how to express their opinion with the help of grammatical means, and how to use cohesive devices to make sentences and clauses logically follow each other. In addition, the participants will get acquainted with the structure of an English paragraph and learn to use basic argumentation tools within a paragraph. 

* The course is the first part of a program consisting of two consecutive courses. You can also register for the other course Fundamentals of Academic Writing: From Paragraph to an Academic Text. 

Trainer: Natalia Ivanova-Slavianskaia, MSc (Oxford), Ph.D., lecturer of English and Applied Linguistics and the author and instructor of courses in Academic Writing (Department of English Studies of The University of Cyprus, Department of International Relations at SPBU, the Department of Foreign Languages at HSE). In 2018 Natalia completed a M.Sc. course in Applied Linguistics (Teaching English in University Settings) at Oxford University, having explored the problem of Russian learners’ self-regulating writing strategies as the topic of her Masters dissertation. Since 2010, Natalia has been working as a speaking examiner for Cambridge Assessment.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• "We've learned how to structure both sentence and the paragraph in a better way. Also we've got theoretical and practical tools to make the text readable."
• "This course was very useful for me. This information will help me to write a scientific paper in English. The material is presented in various forms. The information is interesting, understandable and useful. The information of the English paragraph structure was very important. Thank you!"
• "Thank you so much for the brilliant course."

This course is designed to teach participants the basics of writing for an international publication in line with global conventions. Special emphasis will be placed on the linguistic features of a research article as a distinct genre, with specific activities aimed to address participants’ need for genre-based academic vocabulary building.

The course topics will include:

•  requirements for manuscript preparation and publishing

•  content, style, and organizational requirements for writing key sections of an article

•  logical patterns for introducing and sequencing ideas in the sections

•  requirements for language selection and use

•  the mechanics of formatting references to cited sources

The course will combine online sessions and autonomous study using an online tutorial on academic writing. Participants are expected to write drafts of their articles; therefore, a prerequisite for participation in the course is a research project in progress.

Trainer: Vera Dugartsyrenova, an Associate Professor at the HSE Department of World Economy and International Affairs. Her research interests include English for Specific and Academic Purposes, blended and distance language learning, academic writing, and intercultural communication. She has designed and taught a variety of EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and ESP (English for Specific Purposes) courses to students majoring in linguistics and intercultural communication, mathematics and psychology, academic writing courses for economics, political science, and Asian studies students, as well as blended and online professional development courses for language teachers.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “I've significantly improved my understanding of a desirable structure of an academic paper. As to language skills, I managed to better understand what tenses are generally used to achieve specific purposes of the study. The platform we used during the course was very helpful in achieving these results. I also enjoyed our peer-review activities very much.”

• “Many thanks to Vera for the course, especially prompt answers to all questions and high-quality feedback on the sections of my future article.”

• “Overall, the course is great! I would like to express my gratitude to our trainer and HSE Academic Writing Center for the opportunity for me to take this course.”

Self-Editing: How to Become Happy with What You Write is a highly interactive and practical course, which aims to equip participants with self-editing strategies that they can apply for making their texts more readable. In the course, participants will explore the ways to edit their written texts for clarity and logic as well as proofread them for mistakes and typos. Participants will also examine common reviewers’ comments on research articles submitted to international peer-reviewed journals. This will enable participants to understand what aspects of the language and argumentation to carefully look at while self-editing their research writing. The course will suit everyone who is writing for publication in English. 

NB: Participants are required to have a piece of text (2-3 pages long) to edit during the course.

Trainer: Natalia Ivanova-Slavianskaia, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Applied Linguistics and the author of courses in Academic Writing (Department of International Relations at SPBU, the Department of Foreign Languages at HSE). In 2018,  Natalia completed a M.Sc. course in Applied Linguistics (Teaching English in University Settings) at Oxford University, having explored the problem of Russian learners’ self-regulating writing strategies as the topic of her dissertation. Since 2010, Natalia has been working as a speaking examiner for Cambridge Assessment.

Participants' Feedback:

• “I learnt to assess the paper critically, from another person's view. The main takeaways are: structuring paragraphs and sentences logically, introducing strong points first, rewriting sentences according to the logic of the English language, not Russian. I am really grateful to the trainer and the AWC.”
• “I would like to thank Natalia for this practice-oriented course. It was not some theory, but a real hands-on experience.”
• “I am so grateful to Natalia for the course, the opportunity to be part of the team. Natalia has encouraged me not to quit but keep writing and view mistakes as valuable tools.”

The crash course Action Research Venture is intended for practitioners - language teachers willing to do action research and publish its results. The course involves interactive exploration of action research theory, reading in the chosen area, writing up a rationale for research, and peer reviewing. Participants get practice in formulating a research question, planning actions for collecting and analyzing data. They also choose a target journal and read its guidelines to format a potential publication.

Trainer: Svetlana Suchkova, Ph.D., associate professor, a teacher of English, director of HSE Academic Writing Center, teacher trainer. She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics. She has participated with presentations and workshops in numerous national and international conferences. She is a member of the Management Board of the Russian Writing Centers Consortium.

Participants' Feedback:

• “The course was a powerful kick for me to start writing. Besides, now I'm motivated to try and go for Scopus or WoS, which I was really scared of before. That motivation is the most valuable takeaway for me.”
• “I was fully engaged in terms of processing the information and now I definitely have the tools to actually conduct the research and clear understanding of the process, in all details. And this is super valuable for me.”
• “Mesmerizing course, full of information! I would like to thank the trainer again for her effort and input.”

We write emails more frequently than papers, books, and various reports. Quite often, it is the effectiveness of those emails that determines the fate of our papers, books, reports, conference talks, collaboration projects, guest lectures, etc. In this course, we will look at finer aspects of emailing in English. We will start by revising format, structure, and standard types of emails; then we will take a closer look at the types that will be more relevant to course participants. We will discuss the basics of politeness theory, compare Russian and English emailing conventions, and practice the language used in emails. We will pay particular attention to solving problems by emails along with strategies for avoiding inappropriately straightforward and combative expressions, unintentional accusations, and making the emails polite, but firm and effective. We will also discuss and practice editing techniques which will help spot and correct careless mistakes before hitting the send button. 

Trainer: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features, and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

English level requirement: C1

Partipants' Feedback:

“The course was highly useful and exceeded my expectations. I enjoyed working in groups and doing exercises in real time. Writing mock emails as well as rewriting was especially helpful.”

“I mastered the difference between formal and semi-formal formats and learnt what types of phrases are appropriate in each case. I liked working in the handouts because the exercises were really interesting and complicated.”

"Thank you so much for letting me join this great course and become a member of an exciting team of HSE colleagues who shared their experiences in different issues. And of course thanks to Tatiana Golechkova, who presented some quite hard material in a clear and simple way and created tasks for both revising and getting new information."

This eight-session course will support writers as they build their knowledge and skills of the publication process, academic article genres, and accompanying documents. The course will include significant peer work and feedback from instructors as participants write and revise. By the end of the course, writers should be able to feel confident about what is expected in an Introduction and how it connects to the other parts of an IMRaD, including Title and Abstract. Upon completion, they should also have a polished draft of an article introduction and accompanying submission materials.

Trainers:

Ron Martinez,  Ph.D.,  is Associate Editor of the Oxford University Press journal Applied Linguistics. Dr. Martinez has lectured on subjects related to vocabulary and writing at several universities, including the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, and his current research interests center on English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) and English Medium Instruction (EMI). Now at the University of Arkansas, Ron is working on implementing new writing for research publication support programs for international students.

Talinn Phillips is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Writing & Research Center at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA). She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing and Rhetoric and Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing,  lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Course Program

Participants' Feedback:

•  “I'm so grateful - it was a fantastic course. My knowledge and skills of academic writing have greatly improved during the course.”

• “Many thanks to Ron and Talinn! As a practicing Academic Writing teacher myself, I found the materials extremely helpful. I have made quite a lot of pedagogical notes to come back to in the future. The individual tutoring sessions were great, too.”

• “It was absolutely great to look at research writing from an American perspective. Thank you for a comfortable atmosphere, creative tasks, and feedback. Great eight weeks!”   

Lecturing in English demands specific knowledge and skills from teachers. While preparing for lectures, teachers very often put an emphasis on planning the content – materials, sources, handouts, slides – and do not always have time to plan the actual teaching and the language that can facilitate it. However, learning in English may prove much more challenging for non-native speakers. Hence, it is important for teachers not only to plan lecture content and workshop topics, but also keep in mind the language and structure of the material; ways of introducing and revising terminology, checking comprehension, and student engagement. Besides linguistic difficulties associated with running lectures and workshops in English, the course will cover pedagogical strategies that can enhance learning efficiency.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “I really enjoyed all practice in the classroom and approbation of practical tools which Tatiana explained to us. I had an opportunity to stand back and look at my teaching style through students’ eyes.”

• “I think the most important part was the way how Tatiana showed and explained practices and phenomena through personal example. Additionally, teamwork and group engagement were valuable. Each class was a great pleasure - thank you!”

• “Speaking practice was very valuable, as well as the practical usage of specific techniques. The most useful was the overall scheme for planning both seminars and lectures.”

• “I have changed my position about some difficulties of teaching in English, looking at it from the students' point of view. I really appreciate some online tools presented by Tatiana that I have already tested in my own lectures. And I really appreciate the feedback Tatiana has given me during the course.”

This course aims to analyze the requirements and create an academic/scientific poster presentation. Posters now are one of the most prevailing means of presenting information at different conferences. However, a poster presentation as a genre is often neglected, and conference participants experience difficulty making posters engaging and efficient. Conference delegates often suffer from the so-called paradox of choice, when there are too many presentations on display, but few stand out.

This course will provide participants with the instruments for delivering an effective poster presentation: starting from its planning and design to oral presentation. We will try to make your poster practices more efficient in meeting the needs of the academic/scientific community.

The course includes three blocks that consequently cover the basics of poster making, the mechanics of writing different parts of a poster, and the principles of oral presentation. The participants will write their poster texts and will use Power Point to create a poster template. The participants will also practice oral presentation and improve their accuracy and fluency.

During the last session we will imitate a conference poster session where the participants will present their posters to the group and get feedback.

Trainer: Ekaterina Redkina is a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10 years of experience. She is a CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and DELTA (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she teaches academic and professionally oriented skills to Russian psychology students at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, syllabus and materials design, and the use of information technology in the ELT practice.

Paticipants' Feedback:

• “I liked presenting study results succinctly (in 3 minutes or even in 30 seconds). I also learnt how to create a poster with an effective and reader-friendly layout, and how to use body language and eye contact when making a poster presentation.”
• “The most useful for me was the knowledge I received about poster presentation and how to create one in PowerPoint.”
• “I learnt how to write textual information for a poster (word patterns, structures, etc.). The design guidelines given by the teacher were extremely useful!”
• “I enjoyed every class; Ekaterina was very friendly and approachable.”

The course “Writing a Working Paper“ targets early career researchers who plan to publish a working paper before submitting this paper to an international high-ranking journal. This intensive course aims at guiding participants in language-related issues of writing a paper in English for the HSE working paper series. Participants will develop their skills of producing an effective paper in English in line with the HSE working papers series requirements. They will learn why to join academic conversations and how to produce a clear, argument-driven, and stylistically appropriate working paper. The course program includes effective writing tools and strategies for becoming more independent in research writing.

The key learning outcome will be a working paper draft produced by each participant.

Trainer: Natalia Smirnova, Ph.D. in Teaching English as Foreign Language, senior lecturer and the Deputy Head of the Department of Foreign Languages at the HSE in St. Petersburg.  She has designed and taught courses in Research Writing, Writing for Publication, Rhetoric, Argumentation and Writing both for students and researchers. Natalia has a strong research interest in the social perspectives on writing, ESOL pedagogies, and writing assessment.

Partipants' Feedback:

• "I do think that this course should be available every semester for people working in the HSE. I can't overestimate the importance and benefits of the information conveyed by the teacher, her professionalism, friendly attitude and her help in editing the text!"

• "I am very grateful to our teacher Natalia Viktorovna for very attentive and patient attitude towards each participant in the course. To tell the truth, I did not expect such warm attitude. I was very pleased to participate in this course."

The Introduction to Academic Writing course aims to give the participants an idea of how to "build" an academic text in English and provide them with specific language structures and gambits for the most common language functions: giving definitions, referring to other research, describing conclusions etc.

What's the course content?

The course builds on excerpts from original, but easily understandable academic articles on social sciences. Through carefully structured tasks, the participants analyze these texts and use them as models for their own writing.

How is the course structured?

•   The course is made up of 4 modules, 2 topics in each one, and is delivered online via the Schoology LMS. The modules include tasks on text analysis, writing, vocabulary and (very occasionally) grammar.  Some modules include links to extra materials (such as links to videos).  

•   Each module finishes with a writing task (writing a paragraph in Module 1 and then longer texts in other modules), which the participants have a week to submit.

•   Participants get individual feedback (written or in the form of a voiced screencast) on each final task.

•   To "pass" the course, 3 out of 4 final tasks need to be submitted.

The material is spread over 5 weeks and for an Intermediate student will probably require about 2-4 hours of study a week.

Trainer: Alina Brooks (CELTA, DELTA, MSc) is currently teaching English at INSA (Institut National des Sciences Appliquees) in Strasbourg. She is also a CELTA trainer and a methodologist for FLOW by Yandex.Practicum. Formerly an IELTS and Cambridge main suite examiner, Alina holds degrees from MCPU and Aston University (MSc in Educational Management in TESOL). Alina regularly runs the Introduction to Academic Writing course for the Academic Writing Centre.

Partipants' Feedback:

• "Now I am more or less clear about  how to write academic texts in English. I am more confident in my writing and less scared to make a mistake. Now I know how to build a text and use SPRE framework. I learned some useful vocabulary for connecting sentences, for paraphrasing and hedging. It is funny, now I know that writing a text in English is like a programming, easier means better."
• "Now I undestand better how to write paragraphs and SPRE-texts, report on my reseach and give definitions, organize texts in academic English and use hedging phrases to sound less categoric and more academic, as well as use linkers for structuring academic texts. I find suggested vocabulary very useful. I learned many new words and phrases!"

This online course aims to contribute to the enhancement of academic writing competences and raise the quality of participants’ academic texts and publications. Participants will learn the key features of writing for academic purposes, how academic texts differ from the texts written for general purposes; they will extend their repertoire of techniques allowing to write various texts for different purposes. By the end of the course, they will have written their own academic text sample of a relevant type and genre, including a research paper meant for international publication.

Trainer: Irina Titarenko, MA in Applied Linguistics for ELT (MAELT) from Lancaster University, UK. Irina is a certified teacher of English for Academic purposes (Norwich Institute for Language Education - NILE, UK, 2014) and a certified trainer in the Content and Language Integrated Learning approach (CLIL, British Council, 2012).

Participants' Feedback:

• “I think that the course was very useful, and there was a lot of communication with colleagues. Now, I am very clear about what I should do before initiating a new article. Thank you very much.”
• “I really liked the format of thread discussions as a space for me to express my opinion and see what my groupmates think.”
• “I would like to thank Irina for great lessons we had during the course. HSE AWC is an excellent project that provides AW support to HSE postgraduate students, teachers, and researchers. Thank you so much!”

The course is designed for those who often communicate with representatives of different cultures in English. The course will teach you all aspects of speech preparation and public speaking in English, taking into account socio-cultural differences Russian scholars speaking in English are not always aware of. By the end of the course, students prepare presentations in English describing their research project and/or research results. Then presentations are discussed in the group.

Tutor: Galina Pavlovskaya, Ph.D. in pedagogy, 2012. At the time she is a senior lecturer of English at the Foreign Languages Department, the English Language Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines, in the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Galina is an author of the video-course Avoiding Sociocultural Pitfalls Presenting in English and New Challenges in Public Speaking. She has been teaching English to university students, top-managers and IT-specialists for more than ten years and she is experienced in teaching sociocultural public speaking skills. Galina was elected as one of the “best teachers of the HSE” in 2017.

Отзывы слушателей:

• “I enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity of getting feedback and comments about my performance, especially from my colleagues from other fields. Looking forward to taking part in future courses!”
• "I really enjoyed being involved in the discussion and group work in our classes.”

This course aims to assist researchers in writing a draft for a publication in English. It is a blend of face-to-face classes, work on Wikispaces, and individual consultations online.

The topics of the course include:

•  characteristics of Academic Writing in English

•  typical Features of a Paragraph: Unity, Coherence, Cohesion

•  choosing a Journal. Studying the Journal’s Requirements

•  the IMRaD Format of an Article. Typical Features of Each Part

•  writing Structural Parts of a Research Article

Learning outcomes: developing academic vocabulary; writing a draft of a paper; building peer review skills

Target audience: researchers from different fields of study

Requirements: research in process, language level – B2+/C1 (CEFR). The enrolment is based on a motivation letter and an interview.

Tutor: Svetlana Suchkova - Ph.D., associate professor, a teacher of English, director of HSE Academic Writing Center, teacher trainer. She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics. She has participated with presentations and workshops in numerous national and international conferences. She is a member of the Management Board of the Russian Writing Centers Consortium.

This course is designed for university teachers from various specialisms teaching through the medium of English. Its ultimate aim is developing a course syllabus in English. By the end of the course, the participants will be able to:

• understand the syllabus structure and use it in their own syllabi
• differentiate the command verbs describing LOTs (low-order thinking skills) and HOT (high-order thinking skills) according to Bloom’s taxonomy
• use these verbs as well as academic language chunks to describe course aims and learning outcomes
• analyze authentic course syllabi of leading universities in terms of approaches to describing course contents and make most appropriate choices for their courses
• understand the existing conventions in syllabus design, and practice applying them in order to understand the extent to which this application is necessary

This course is aimed at improving the skills necessary to develop articles appropriate for publication. The course largely addresses beginning authors, as it offers step-by-step guidance in working out abstracts and planning their projects, editing drafts is not the key concern. Experienced authors could benefit by increasing their language awareness, becoming alert to typical mistakes and developing writing skills through the use of pattern phrases characteristic of academic discourse. Special emphasis is laid on structuring papers and their stylistic peculiarities.

Tutor: Julia Kuzmenkova, professor, doctor of cultural studies, candidate in comparative and diachronic linguistics; head of an ELT Department for the students of management, sociology, psychology, history, mathematics and electronics National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow. The author of over a hundred works including monographs, course books, teaching materials, translations, articles etc. Professional and research interests comprise:
- Russian, British and American traditions, communicative culture and norms of verbal behaviour
- ELT modular-based programme designing
- Creative approaches to material writing
- Raising language and cultural awareness through ELT Theatre. 

Target audience: junior researchers

The course focuses on the problems associated with the use of English academic vocabulary (most of which is borrowings from classical languages), on the peculiarities of affixing words of Latin origin and spelling of words of Greek origin. Special attention is paid to fundamental differences in use of vocabulary between written academic and colloquial English, which is an important factor in academic writing. The author of the course has developed a special technique that helps recognize words meanings with the help of the elements these words consist of, and a comparative analysis of meanings of Latin and Russian affixes, which effectively builds lexical competence and helps to avoid mistakes made by Russian scholars writing in English. 

Tutor: Irina Korotkina, MA, PhD (Moscow State University), Head of Interdisciplinary Department of English, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Teacher and researcher in English for academic and specific academic purposes (EAP/ESAP), author of several books and more than 40 research papers. Professional interests include academic writing methodology in English and Russian, internationalization of Russian education and research, and academic literacy.

Course programme: https://goo.gl/rhCC9j
Target audience: HSE researchers and professors (full-time HSE employees)

Emailing has become the main means of communication. A lot depends on whether our email is effective, meets genre conventions and expectations of the addressee. It will determine our partners’ willingness or unwillingness not only to understand our questions and issues, but also to respond to the email and continue cooperation. During the course, we will look at most common emailing errors, paying special attention to English speakers’ expectations and their differences from our conventions. Participants will learn about the structure and socio-cultural and linguistic aspects of electronic communication.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova is an assistant professor at the English Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines at HSE. She is a Cambridge Delta-qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Course programme: https://goo.gl/zWbZGT
Target audience: HSE researchers and professors (with full-time positions at HSE)

This online course is meant to guide HSE faculty through writing a working paper in HSE preprint series. 

The course consists of three parts:
1. Self-study with video materials
2. Online seminars (workshops) in small groups on writing different parts of a research paper (introduction, literature review, methodology, etc.) 
3. Analyzing the texts written throughout the course in individual consultations with the teacher and online proofreading sessions with native speakers.

Tutors: 

Zhenya Bakin, Ex-Head of AWC, Teacher of English, Teacher Trainer, Fulbright Scholar (Rhodes College, Memphis, TN), Certified CELAT/DELTA Teacher, Uni of Oslo Alumnus

Natalia Smirnova, PhD in Teaching English as Foreign Language, senior lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg.

The participants will work on creating an academic text throughout a series of seminars. The course lasts 5 weeks  and incorporates the following topics:

- Writing an academic article: style features and text logic.

- Academic formalities: references, vocabulary, objectiveness.

- Academic text: stages. From warm-up to planning

- Paragraph in academic text: from the first line to the full stop

- Paragraph in academic text: coherence and contrasts.

The participants of the course will write and improve their own text throughout all classes.

Tutor: Zhenya Bakin, AWC director (at the time), Teacher of English, Teacher Trainer, Fulbright Scholar (Rhodes College, Memphis, TN), Certified CELAT/DELTA Teacher, Uni of Oslo Alumnus

The participants will learn how to write an introduction of a research paper in the course of four classes. the focus of the course of academic vocabulary, syntax and general rules of academic writing. The outcome of the course is a completed introduction. 

Tutor: Zhenya Bakin, AWC director (at the time), Teacher of English, Teacher Trainer, Fulbright Scholar (Rhodes College, Memphis, TN), Certified CELAT/DELTA Teacher, Uni of Oslo Alumnus

The course is aimed at helping Russian writers develop sentence building skills appropriate in writing academic papers in English. The author’s approach to sentence structure is based on witty models and logical divisions between English and Russian which engage learners’ analytic skills rather than memory. The materials designed for the course are based on extracts from real papers written by HSE academics and researchers, eliciting the most typical and difficult to trace errors.

Tutor: Irina Korotkina, MA, Ph.D. (Moscow State University), Head of Interdisciplinary Department of English, Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. Teacher and researcher in English for academic and specific academic purposes (EAP/ESAP), author of several books and more than 40 research papers. Professional interests include academic writing methodology in English and Russian, internationalization of Russian education and research, and academic literacy.

Course program