The course aims to develop students’ spoken and written English language skills to be used for academic purposes and in various areas where geoinformatics is applied. The course provides for the acquisition of the fundamental geography and GIS (geographic information system) terminology in English as well as raises students’ awareness of academic and specialized language. The enabling objectives of the course are to develop students’ skills for selecting academic literature, reading it for acquiring information and making summaries, abstracts and reports as well as selecting professional literature on similar topics to compare the specific features of the academic and professional discourse; repeat and consolidate students’ knowledge of grammar at level B2-C1; consolidate students’ skills of expressing a professional opinion in English and update students’ presentation skills. The topics covered in the course ensure ample opportunities for learning and practicing co-operation, interaction and mediation strategies as well as facilitate critical thinking and digital literacy which can be used for further development of their skills and knowledge. The course is organized in accordance with the students’ prior knowledge and acquired skills and more extensive support programme is offered to the students with insufficient skills of independent foreign language acquisition and lower level of knowledge.
The language of instruction is English.
Results Knowledge: 1. Know the basic terminology in English on the topics examined in the course. 2. Know the terminology on the topic of their interest in geoinformatics from the individually studied professional articles. 3. Are aware of linguistically precise use of terms in a sentence and grammatically correct formation of questions, tenses, voice and mood. 4. Understand the key principles of reading EU directives. Skills 5. Ask questions and expressing an opinion (guiding a conversation) and reporting the acquired information by organizing the text in a logical structure. 6. Read and comprehend professional and scientific geoinformatics literature and express opinions on the studied material as well as professional topicalities. 7. Present information in English loudly, clearly and in an understandable manner. Competences: 8. Interactively use various resources (professional and language knowledge resources, scientific, popular and reference resources in English and Latvian) for the acquisition of the necessary information, summarize the acquired information and present it in English individually and in a group). 9. Cooperate within a group – agree on a topic, its rationale, engage in brainstorming; jointly select information and opinions to be presented as well as draft, correct, edit and deliver the presentation material.
