Text Skills in English for Students of Social Sciences and Philosophy (B1-B2)

SWS: 2

ECTS: 6

The ability to use English for communication in international settings is highly important, especially when engaging questions of social relevance. This course will help students within the social sciences and philosophy (i.e. studying at FB03) to build the necessary English language skills as required in their field. You will practise discussing social-science and philosophy related questions based on subject-specific text types. You will thus be able to understand the content of a text with reasonable speed and reliability, but also to engage with the information and viewpoints critically. This also means having academic discussions based on the text as well as responding to it in your own text production. Apart from the text-based work, we will review and practise grammatical constructions and lexical topics. The activities and aims of the course are based around the B2 spectrum of the Common European Framework.

Selected list of reading

Berger, P. L. (1979). Sociology as an individual pastime. In Invitation to sociology: A humanistic perspective. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 11-36.

Eriksen, T. H. (2005). Complexity and change. In Small places, large issues: An introduction to social and cultural anthropology. Fourth edition. London: Pluto Press. 308-328.

Kent, L. (2017). Transitional justice and peacebuilding. In Simic, O. (ed.) An Introduction to transitional justice. London and New York: Routledge. 201-220.

Schäfer, A. (2012). Consequences of social inequality for democracy in Western Europe. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 6(2), 23-45.