EAP 116: English & Disciplinary Skills for Multilingual Students

EAP 116-K04: English & DiscSkillsMultiLing
(Fall 2024)

03:30 PM to 05:20 PM T

Mason Korea (119 Songdomunhwa-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, Korea) G304

Section Information for Fall 2024

Course Description

Whereas EAP 110 that you have taken in the previous semester is an academic essay composition course that integrates language instruction with composition instruction, EAP 116 is a language and academic skills class that focuses on developing strong English language, critical thinking and studentship skills employed by successful students and professionals, in short, the habits of mind used when writing about academic and critical topics in academic setting. 

In addition to continued development of the language skills focused on in EAP 116, we will work on developing scientific and reasoning habits of mind as well as time and project management skills that are required by each academic discipline.

The class is based on investigating a problem from an academic stance. Potential solutions
to the problems will be developed in teams and presented by those teams in project reports and posters. 

In the process of creating these presentation materials, you will apply the analytical reading and academic writing skills you developed last semester and continue to develop this term. Additionally, you will further develop your research and notetaking skills and continue to develop vocabulary and studentship skills. The collaborative nature of the project will require you to use interpersonal communication and problem-solving skills as well as collaborative use of technology and resources.

Course Goals

If you actively participate in this class, you will learn about:

Rhetorical Knowledge (Developing a project):

 * Effectively identify object of study, purpose, problem, key concept, main findings and relevance in other’s work as well as your own
 * Build relationships among key concepts 
 * Summarize and analyze collected data

Language Knowledge (Developing a key concept):

 * Build a coherent paragraph
 * Identify and build key concepts

Process Knowledge (Sustaining a project):

 * Produce drafts that effectively responds to a writing task
 * Respond to feedback on course work  
 * Engage in peer-review
 * Produce and follow a project plan/timeline
 * Produce a group project report (inclusive of individual student resumes) and poster

 By the end of the course, you will be able to…

o   Locate academic texts on your topic from the George Mason University library

o   Identify main arguments and suggestions from the academic articles that you review.

o   Formulate research questions for your research goals.

o   Plan research methodology for your research projects.

o   Execute your research methods in the field.

o   Collect data both online and off-line through active collaboration with your team members

o   Demonstrate effective reading/annotation strategies 

o   Identify and differentiate main ideas and supporting information

o   Interpret context clues and employ strategies to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words/concepts

o   Integrate course-related vocabulary in writing and in class discussions

o   Demonstrate improved ability to read, analyze, and integrate concepts in            written, visual, and oral formats

o   Revise work based on self-assessment as well as feedback from others 

The observable outcome of this course includes:

1.     Discipline Analysis Project: 

a.     Data set for your discipline: Professor, club, academic text, career opportunities, personal statement

b.     Poster 

2.     Situation Analysis Project:

a.     A case study report integrating major elements of academic research report (Introduction-Methodology-Results-Discussion)

b.     Academic poster on the same topic and content

TEXTBOOKS AND MATERIALS

Hacker, D. & Sommers, N. (2015) A Writer's Reference: With Resources for Multilingual Writers and ESL, 8th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. 

Active university email and Blackboard accounts

•       masonlive.gmu.edu 

•       mymasonportal.gmu.edu

Requirements and Evaluation

All assignments must be uploaded to Blackboard by their deadline.  If you miss a deadline, please do not ask the instructor if you can upload the assignment after the fact—you can't, even if you only missed the deadline by one minute or if you had a major emergency.  Any conflicts you have with deadlines should be resolved by turning your work in early.  In other words, don't wait until the last minute to complete your assignments.  If you miss a deadline, you will receive a zero for that assignment; however, no single assignment can cause you to fail this course.  Put another way, getting a zero on one or two assignments will not cause you to fail the course; instead, a pattern of missed assignments will cause you to fail the course.

You are expected to attend class. Attendance is checked and logged daily. Attendance data is often requested by advisors, sponsors, and the Office of International Programs and Services. Repeated absences and each absence will negatively affect your classwork grade (weighted at 10% of your final course grade). 

In addition, early departures (leaving before the class period ends) and late arrivals count as half-day absences:  A late arrival is being one minute late to class.  Not paying attention and/or not participating in class work even if you are present counts as a half absence. 

Attendance Policy

You are expected to attend class. Attendance is checked and logged daily. Attendance data is often requested by advisors, sponsors, and the Office of International Programs and Services. Repeated absences and each absence will negatively affect your classwork grade (weighted at 10% of your final course grade). 

In addition, early departures (leaving before the class period ends) and late arrivals count as half-day absences:  A late arrival is being one minute late to class.  Not paying attention and/or not participating in class work even if you are present counts as a half absence. 

Academic Integrity

Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another source without giving that source credit. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or endnotes.  Cheating means to get help on an assignment without permission. Cheating includes asking another classmate to see his or her paper before writing yours or hiring someone to edit your paper. Allowing another student to see your work without permission from the instructor is also considered cheating.  If you don’t understand an assignment, you need to ask the professor for clarification rather than your classmates. Getting help on your writing at the Academic Resource Center is acceptable and encouraged.  However, in this course we are focusing on the errors specific to your own writing as you work to build tools and strategies to address those errors.  Because of this goal, all of your work must be done on your own except for the assigned collaborate work (for example, group work required to complete the final project and poster).  

You may not—at any time—ask another student, a family member, a native speaker, or anyone else to do your assignments for this class.  You should NOT ‘copy-and-paste’ material without due citation. Your work must be your own with all of your own mistakes.  The first violation of this will result in you having to repeat the assignment. A second violation of this will result in you being reported to the Office of Academic Integrity as a potential Honor Code Violation. Since your writing must be your own with all of your mistakes, it is unacceptable to use Google Translate or other digital translation tools to translate writing from your first language to English and use this translation as your own writing. It is also unacceptable to use any online paraphrasing tools.  Any observable use of translation devices or paraphrasing tools for your own writing may result in a reported violation of the honor code and be considered "cheating" because of "use of unauthorized assistance and/or providing/benefitting from unauthorized academic materials."

Any text generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) text-generation tool (such as ChatGPT) is not accepted in this class as “the student’s own work” and will be treated similarly to text published on paper or online, or text composed or significantly edited/altered by another person. The use of such text without proper attribution is a violation of academic integrity.

If there is any confusion on a point of academic integrity, please ask me.  Respect for the intellectual property and the need to uphold academic honesty should be of great concern to all of us. You can also consult the George Mason Honor Code for more information: https://oai.gmu.edu/mason-honor-code/  and https://masonkorea.gmu.edu/mkaa/cai/honorcode/.

Inclement Weather/Cancellations

·        When there is a change in the university schedule due to inclement weather or other circumstances, the announcement will be made.

·        Please check your email and Blackboard before coming to class.

·        If class is cancelled for any reason, you are responsible for checking your email and Blackboard and completing any work assigned. 

Email Policy

If I need to email you, I will use your Mason email account.  You are responsible for checking Blackboard and your e-mail regularly to get updates about the course. 

Email makes it easy to contact your professors, but it also requires that you think about the expectations of your audience. Here are some tips for emailing me and your other professors:

·        Treat an email to a professor as a formal correspondence.  Use a respectful greeting such as "Dear Professor Smith." 

Include your full name in the email.  Professors teach many classes with lots of students; make sure your name appears in the email so that the professor knows who you are and what class you belong to. 
   

Have reasonable expectations for response time.  You should not expect a quick reply to emails sent late at night or over the weekend, nor should you expect an immediate response in general.  Your professors are always busy.
 

However, help your professors remember.  If two full business days have passed since you sent your email, send a second email and clearly state the type of response you would like.  It's possible your message was overlooked, or that your professor didn't realize you expected a reply.
  

Use a respectful closing.  Close the email with something respectful such as "thank you," "regards," "see you on Wednesday," etc.
 

Disability Services
Students with documented disabilities are legally entitled to certain accommodations in the classroom. If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see one of the instructors and contact Disability Services at the Department of Academic Affairs. We will be happy to work with students to arrange fair access and support.

Counseling and Psychological Services 
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides a wide range of services to students, faculty, and staff. Services are provided by a staff of professional counseling and clinical psychologists, social workers, and counselors. The Center provides individual and group counseling, workshops and outreach programs—experiences to enhance a student's personal experience and academic performance. You can reach them at 703.993.2380 or https://caps.gmu.edu/ . At the GMUK you may reach the counselor and wellness office (https://masonkorea.gmu.edu/resources-and-services/counseling-and-wellness) 

Academic Resource Center Tutoring Services

https://masonkorea.gmu.edu/resources-and-services/academic-resource-center/tutoring

The Academic Resource Center provides individual face-to-face tutoring on campus.

To Schedule an Individual Consultation

Make an Appointment: To make an appointment for face-to-face tutoring, please check the tutor’s schedule on the door and sign up.
Walk-in: Come and see if a tutor is available now
Opt-In Service Contract: Do you need to meet a tutor regularly to improve your English writing skills or academic skills?
Guidelines

Arrive 5 minutes before your scheduled appointment
Bring in the instructions for your assignment
Bring a physical copy of your paper
Your appointment may be given to another person if you arrive 10 minutes late
Arrive with specific questions about your paper or assignment
 

Mason’s Diversity Statement

George Mason University promotes a living and learning environment for outstanding growth and productivity among its students, faculty and staff. Through its curriculum, programs, policies, procedures, services and resources, Mason strives to maintain a quality environment for work, study and personal growth.

An emphasis upon diversity and inclusion throughout the campus community is essential to achieve these goals. Diversity is broadly defined to include such characteristics as, but not limited to, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, and sexual orientation. Diversity also entails different viewpoints, philosophies, and perspectives. Attention to these aspects of diversity will help promote a culture of inclusion and belonging, and an environment where diverse opinions, backgrounds and practices have the opportunity to be voiced, heard and respected.

The reflection of Mason’s commitment to diversity and inclusion goes beyond policies and procedures to focus on behavior at the individual, group and organizational level. The implementation of this commitment to diversity and inclusion is found in all settings, including individual work units and groups, student organizations and groups, and classroom settings; it is also found with the delivery of services and activities, including, but not limited to, curriculum, teaching, events, advising, research, service, and community outreach.

Acknowledging that the attainment of diversity and inclusion are dynamic and continuous processes, and that the larger societal setting has an evolving socio-cultural understanding of diversity and inclusion, Mason seeks to continuously improve its environment. To this end, the University promotes continuous monitoring and self-assessment regarding diversity. The aim is to incorporate diversity and inclusion within the philosophies and actions of the individual, group and organization, and to make improvements as needed.

Prompt Samples for Your SAP Projects

Learning how to approach and write about situations, issues, and/or problems in your discipline is a key element of the EAP 110 courses.  Much like learning about ‘Defining Academic Writing Essay’ last semester (by writing the DAWE), in this course, you will identify and analyze a campus issue and try to solve it conducting research.  In this project, the Situation Analysis Project (SAP), you will become more familiar with the Mason campus by exploring a Mason situation, identifying the issues surrounding the situation, researching approaches to improve the situation, and presenting the best approach to the situation for the stakeholders who can take action regarding the situation.

Here is the list of five Mason situations that your group can choose. Once a group choose one of the situations below, the other groups cannot choose the same situation and should choose a different one. Find a group member in your class with the same/similar major and shares the same interest in the list of situations below to form a group of three or four. In case there are not enough members of the same major, you can choose a member that has a different major but has the same interest in one of the following situations.

1. Blood Donation Drive

https://www.redcross.or.kr/eng/eng_activity/activity_blood_about_us.do

https://www.annlabmed.org/journal/view.html?uid=3318&vmd=Full

Situation: 

Task: 

Explore dormitory buildings and facilities, and identify what works for students and what still needs to be improved. Try to get basic facts (how many students they accommodate, how many Mason Korea students use it per semester, how much do you need to pay, what kind of facilities and services they provide for residents), make observations, and interview/survey residents’ opinions suggestions. Make a formal recommendation to the Dean of Student Affairs on what needs to be improved for student residents. 

2. Disability Access Services 

Situation: 

Imagine you are an intern at IGC’s Facilities Management Office. The office manager is interested in improving disability accessibility issues to accommodate diverse needs of the population in the IGC campus. Currently there are limited disability access services available within the IGC buildings. Choose disability access services as your ‘object of study.’

Task:

Advise the facility manger about how to implement disability access services to all of the IGC buildings. Provide research-based recommendations based on the following areas: disability law in relation to disability service requirements within the academic institutions in Korea, number of disability access facilities needed, estimated budget, technicalities, and other considerations as you conduct research on the OOS.

3. Language, Identity and Power  

Situation: 

Imagine you are a research assistant with Dr. Lee who is working on a research project called “Language and Identity.” Mason Korea represents academic, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversities. Even though students at MK are coming from diverse educational backgrounds, they feel certain pressure of speaking Korean outside the classroom and thus many Korean students face difficulties in practicing their English skills, making friends outside their circle of Korean friends, and blending in with other international students easily. Likewise, international students find it difficult to interact with domestic Korean students. Use identity and language learning as your ‘object of study.’

Task :

Conduct research on how GMUK students (Koreans and internationals) negotiate their identities in different contexts/situation during their years of schooling and report your findings to leadership in GMUK (Campus Dean Matz and Student Affairs Dean Marcel) based on but not limited to the following areas: How students negotiate their identities in and out of the class while interacting and socializing with fellow students, faculty and staff face-to-face, online via collaborate, email, and SNS on campus. How is this identity negotiation connected to the students’ language learning and how do Korean context and IGC campus facilitate or constrain students’ identity construction? What are the ways to construct the institutionalized identity of GMUK? 

4. Exploring Generative A.I. Impact on Undergraduate Students

Context: 

ChatGPT and Co-pilot, distinguished generative A.I. technologies, have gained international acclaim and are accessible to university students for academic exploration and daily applications. However, with their increasing popularity, concerns have arisen among instructors regarding potential misuse, diverting students from constructive learning experiences.

Task: 

Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of various generative A.I. tools available to students, including but not limited to ChatGPT, Co-pilot, and other similar platforms. Investigate the ways in which these tools assist students in academic studies and day-to-day activities. Examine the positive and negative aspects of each tool and propose effective strategies for students to maximize their benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. Ultimately, aim to understand how these generative A.I. technologies contribute to the learning experiences of undergraduate students.

DELIVERABLES:  You must submit your report in two different modes

·       REPORT on your research & recommendations, with references and citations, using a report template that is used in your discipline.

·       POSTER featuring images and texts that explain your recommendations.

GRADE WEIGHTING:  SAPP = 40% OF YOUR TOTAL GRADE

For more details, please refer to the attached syllabus file. 

Course Information from the University Catalog