SYLLABUS FOR ENTRANCE EXAMINATION

PERIOD FROM APRIL 2015 TO APRIL 2016

1. Course Objectives:
By the end of the period, the student should have:
1. Reviewed and learned further advanced grammar
2. improved their vocabulary
3. applied grammar and vocabulary to do different types of exercise
4. built up their confidence in grammar and vocabulary.
2. Course Descriptions
LESSON

SKILLS/CONTENTS
GRAMMAR

Present time: present simple, present

continuous, present perfect simple,
present perfect continuous, stative verbs

Destination B2

VOCABULARY

Travel and Sports

Destination B2

Destination C1
Advanced Vocabulary and Structure Practice

REVIEW

2
3

MATERIALS

GRAMMAR

Present time
Vocabulary and Structure Practice
Test 1

Past time: Past simple, Past Continuous,

Past Perfect simple, Past Perfect
continuous

Destination B2

VOCABULARY

REVIEW

MID
TEST

Destination B2

Destination C1
Advanced Vocabulary and Structure Practice

Past tense time

Vocabulary and Structure Practice
Test 2

TERM

8-9

Understanding
Functions, Roles
and Relationships
Multiple Choice
Question
Matching
Students
facilitations
(3):
Our
Listening
Folder

10-11

Focusing on FCE:
Section 4
Students
facilitations
(4):
Our
Listening
Folder

12-13

Hobbies, Sports and Game

Note-taking
Students
facilitations
(5):
Our
Listening

Folder

14

Dealing
with
Various Accents &
Background
Noises

15

Review End of
term test

3. Course Policy
Regular attendance. Accumulated absences of more than 9 periods will merit an automatic failure.
Submission of three parts of the required listening portfolios.
Submission of the chosen recording(s), self-designed exercise(s) (including the commented versions and final versions) as required.
No late submission is accepted, unless otherwise approved by the teacher at least ONE week before the deadline. Late submission might
occur in 10% reduction of the allotted grade for each day late.
Plagiarism is by no means accepted and will be severely penalized.
Completion of the mid-term test (in week 7) and final test (the exact time to be informed later)
Use of technology (e.g. Microsoft PowerPoint) or multi-media applications (e.g. CD, VCD, DVD) when necessary.
Use of a group email address. Students should access their free email account and check their emails regularly. Students can send
questions or other messages regarding study matters to the teacher or other classmates via this address.
4. Course Assessment

TASKS

TASKING

GRADE ALLOTMENT

Group

20%

2. Part 2: The Listening Folder

Individual

10%

3. Mid term test

Individual

10%

4. Attendance and Participation

Individual

10%

5. Final exam

Individual

50%

1. Part 1: Pair Project

4.1. Part 1: Group Project

REQUIREMENTS
Preparation
-

In pairs, choose one listening skill which must be different from your choice in the first semester to focus on listening and designing skillbuilding and comprehension-check exercises.

In pairs, record two listening passages in authentic English, each of which is of different genres. (The common types of listening genres are
an informal or formal conversation between two people, an interview, a sport commentary, an advertisement, a piece of news, a talk, a
lecture, a radio or a television program).

The passages can be recorded from the radio, cable TV, or live with English native speakers (but not by giving a written passage for
him/her to read). Each passage should last from 4 to 5 minutes. You must not use the listening materials from tests or textbooks.

There is no limit on the topics of the recordings.

The quality of the tape should be good enough for you to listen and for the teacher to grade your work.

For each of the passages, your pair need to:

1. Provide an overview of the listening skill that you choose (within 250 words)
2. Write the transcript of the recording.
3. Design the exercises/listening tasks

Compulsory: You need to design exercises/tasks in a way that they help the exercise users to develop the targeted skill. The
exercises/tasks must be of different types (Refer to the syllabus of semester I for a list of common listening task types).

Optional: You may design extra exercises that are not related to the targeted skill in order to make full use of the passage.

4. Design suitable classroom activities (warm up, follow up activities etc.) that help to make full use of your listening recording.
5. Give your exercises to at least two groups of friends and have them do the exercises and give comments on various aspects such as the
structure and clarity of the exercises, the level of difficulty and suitability for the targeted skill as well as the listening activities.
6. After receiving the comments, revise your exercises and activities.
7. Write a short report (within 500 words) on each members contribution to the project, the whole process of doing the assignment, the
difficulty(ies) that you had and what you did to overcome it(them).
Submission
Your assignment should be either softbound or hardbound before being submitted to the teacher in week 12, and must include:
a) An audio/video tape/CD with two recordings,
b) Sources of the recordings: channel, program, date/time of the records.
c) An overview of the targeted skill,
d) Transcripts of the two recordings,

e) Your exercises and activities for the two recordings version 1, version 2 and the final version. Note that peer comments should be
included (preferably in handwriting) in all pre-final versions.
f) A report.
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA:
- Recordings (as required above): 2 points
- Exercises (as required above): 4.5 points
- Reports (which points out the achievements, shortcomings and suggested solutions): 2.5 points
- Layout & Format (neat and professional): 1 point
4.2. Part 2: Listening Portfolio
REQUIREMENTS
Preparation
Our class is supposed to create and contribute to a listening folder, from which we can share the listening materials to use in class or at home for
our self-study. The class will be divided into five big groups: A, B, C, E and F (or other names of your choice). Each group will take turn to
contribute to the listening folder.
In weeks 4, 6, 9, 11 & 13, each member in the assigned group should bring to class ONE listening passage that they have collected and listened
to during the week. The recording must help to serve one of these following types of purposes:
- (1) to improve the focused skill of the fortnight
- (2) or to widen the students background knowledge in any aspect
Note that the recording(s), the exercise(s) or activity(_ies) can be designed by the students or taken from any reliable sources (books, the
Internet etc.) as long as they are properly referenced. The recordings can be in any format (mp3, wma, mpeg/videos etc.) but should be playable
on the classroom computer and no longer than 5 minutes.
Right before the lesson, the students should have their listening files copied to one folder on the Desktop of the classroom computer. The file
should be named as Students name_ Recording title. This should be done within no more than five minutes after the teacher has entered
the classroom.
Facilitations
In each of these weeks, the teacher will call randomly four students from the assigned group to play their recordings and give informal
facilitations within 15 minutes. During the facilitation, the facilitators must also present new and interesting words and phrases taken from the
6

recordings to their peers. Other students are supposed to participate actively in the activities to learn the new words from their peers
facilitations as well as to improve theirs in the future.
Post facilitation/ Self-studying
At home, all students should:
- practice listening with the recordings that their peers have contributed to the listening folder, and
- write a report on the difficulties and suggested solutions to overcome these difficulties when listening to Our Listening Folder
ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
- Preparation (as required above): 3 points
- Facilitation (as required above): 4 points
- Report (which points out the achievements, shortcomings and suggested solutions): 3 points