Admission requirements
Students other than from the BA English language and culture cannot take this course.
For this course transitional provisions apply. If you are a student who started the BA programme in 2024-2025 or earlier and have to retake this course, please check the 'More info'-tab or contact your study advisor.
Description
As a university-trained English Studies graduate, you are expected to be able to express yourself fluently, accurately and precisely. To help you achieve this goal, The Spoken Word focuses on what we believe are two essential competences: phonological control and vocabulary range and accuracy.
The pronunciation practice sessions aim to help you improve and develop your spoken intelligibility in English. We analyse and practise individual phonemes, but also stress, fluency, rhythm and intonation. Because English teachers in Dutch secondary schools tend to have a strong preference for either British or American English (i.e., for the variety that they themselves were taught), your pronunciation is likely to have a Received Pronunciation (RP; the prestige dialect of the United Kingdom) or Standard American flavour. However, these are not the only important varieties of English in the world. This is why the lectures in block I teach you to recognize and describe the most dominant varieties of English in the world and the connotations of various accents.
In the vocabulary practice sessions, the vocabulary and idioms that you have studied at home are activated in short in-class speaking assignments and oral presentations. Through self-study, you also acquire passive knowledge of phrasal verbs and idioms often used in colloquial English. And in the same way we, as a university English department, are interested in the relationship between sounds in theory (phonetics and phonology) and pronunciation, dialects and accents, we are also interested in words as a topic of academic study (lexicology and lexicography) and vocabulary in use. This is why we address questions that intrigue us as students of words: what is a word? What does meaning mean? How are words born and why do some words survive while others die?
Course objectives
You are able to pronounce English naturally and intelligibly.
You are able to identify, analyse and reflect on the pronunciation characteristics of international varieties of English and are aware of socially and culturally determined aspects of communicating in these varieties.
You have acquired an active and accurate vocabulary that allows you to express yourself in short presentations on a variety of everyday topics, as well as on current social and cultural issues.
You are able to present your findings on small-scale research questions in short presentations in English and you can reflect on your own and other speakers' presentations.
You have a basic knowledge and understanding of lexicology and lexicography.
Timetable
The timetables are available through [My Timetable] (https://rooster.universiteitleiden.nl/schedule).
Mode of instruction
Seminar: 90 minutes per week in the language laboratory
Lecture: 45 minutes per week (online)
Assessment method
Assessment
Weekly in-class mini-tests on the prescribed readings
One in-class and one recorded oral presentation (podcast)
Weighing
Weekly in-class mini-tests: 50%
Oral presentations: 50%
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
Students who have failed the course can resit the failed course component(s).
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
- Texts, web clips, lecture and vocabulary and idioms materials will be published on Brightspace or are available online.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Please note: it's not possible to enroll in MyStudyMap yourself for the tutorial group of this course. If you are a higher year student and need to be enrolled in a tutorial group, please contact the education coordinator.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal
Remarks
Not applicable.