Three Online English Courses for Success in Business

A Project group from the School of Foreign Languages is developing three blended online courses, English for Academic Purposes, Legal English, and Business English. We spoke to Diana Burimskaya, the head of the group, about these new initiatives.

Diana Burimskaya

Associate Professor

 

Can you tell us more about the specifics of these courses?

All three courses are practice-oriented, and the teaching approach in them is based on individual study. Basically, Legal English aims to provide students with a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon law, an understanding of professional terminology, and its correct usage when discussing Russian and American legislation. This course will prepare students for the second academic year, where there are related subjects that are included in the basic curriculum and are taught in English by our teachers and/or native speakers. The Business English course is more general than Legal English. Within this course, students will gain an overview of various types of companies, management, and corporate culture. They will also learn how to write a good CV, as well as many other useful skills. The purpose of the Academic English course is to prepare students to communicate in an academic environment.
 
How many modules will these courses take, and during which academic years will the courses be offered? What level of language proficiency are they designed for?
 
Legal English is designed to be studied during the first two academic years. The course will be introduced across all HSE campuses. Business English consists of 2 parts, each part will be taught over two modules, and is designed for first-year students. Academic English is taught over 3 modules for second-year students. All courses can be started from B1 level of proficiency. The focus of the courses is self-study, meaning students will have the opportunity to read texts at their own pace, watch videos or listen to audio recordings several times, choose the sound level of a track or turn on the subtitles, do exercises on terminology more than once etc.
 
Why is the Legal English course suitable not only for those who study law, but for students of different degree programmes?
This course includes a number of topics that will be interesting for students of other programmes. These include contract law, labour law, intellectual property law, corporate law, and civil torts. These topics can be of interest for students in programmes related to management and economics. And the topic of intellectual property law can be useful for those studying humanities.   
 
Will there be any textbooks or study guides designed for each course? What materials will be created for teachers?
I think that textbooks and guides are no longer as relevant, since teachers can modify the material of the course if necessary. For example, they will be able to insert pop-up links with translations for texts and use exercises with correct pronunciation of words or phrases. Textbooks do not have this didactic opportunity. Initially, we are planning to hold seminars and workshops for teachers. Then we will draw up guidelines for them on how to best work with these online courses.

When do you plan to complete the development of all three courses?
The development of all three online courses will be completed by the end of August 2021. Legal English is already completed and was tested from September 17 to December 19, 2020 on the Smart LMS platform.