This program will help prepare newly admitted graduate students for successful study in US colleges and universities. The Bootcamp program is an intensive 3-week course of study with 4 hours of morning classroom work and afternoon seminars that include workshops, lectures, guest speakers, presentations, group projects, and field trips.
Topics Include:
- Diagnostic tests to help students identify English skills that need improvement
- Focused classroom work and homework to improve general reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar, and vocabulary skills
- Focused classroom work and homework to prepare students for and practice graduate-level reading, writing, and listening tasks
- Speaking activities, pronunciation work, and presentations aimed at helping students with the SPEAK test, effectively speak to a group, and participate in and lead group discussions
- Overview of the American graduate classroom and its expectations
- Information about and activities focusing on how to navigate American university communication expectations and office hours
- Writing tutoring and conversation partners
Dates & Cost:
3 weeks: August 26 – September 13, 2019, $3,500 + UO fees, no UO health insurance
Overview of the Grad Prep Bootcamp
Generally, mornings are spent on focused English study, group work, presentation preparation, and other academic tasks. Afternoons are comprised of seminars on topics such as library research, UO graduate student panel presentations, project work, and field trips (UO library, graduate classroom observation, campus museums, campus recreation center, etc.). Students will also work on group projects, their research papers, and their presentations/lectures during the afternoons as time permits.
Bootcamp students will be partnered with or in small groups with an American university student conversation partner. Conversation partner/group meetings will be scheduled by the individuals and will take place after classroom hours.
Course/Program Outcomes
Listening
- Accurately summarize information from authentic graduate-level lectures/listening passages.
- Identify main ideas/supporting details, organizational structure and a speaker's position when listening to authentic graduate-level lectures.
- Reading
- Identify the main ideas and key vocabulary of self-selected academic and journal articles at a graduate reading level of difficulty.
- Summarize information from graduate level reading material.
Speaking
- Organize and facilitate a high level academic discussion, either alone or with a small group, using strategies to summarize, clarify and elicit information.
- Give a conference-level presentation/lecture about a topic related to a particular field of choice with clear and understandable pronunciation, appropriate visual aids, and an effective question/answer session.
Writing
- Read several academic texts related to a particular field of choice and effectively integrate information from them with accurate summarizing, paraphrasing, and citation in a short research paper.
- Summarize information from several readings into a properly formatted annotated bibliography.
Vocabulary and Grammar
- Demonstrate accurate use of a large number of academic vocabulary words.
- Demonstrate correct use of targeted grammatical forms in written and spoken contexts (which can include some of the following: passive voice, appositives, present perfect, present perfect progressive, adverb clauses, infinitives of purpose, "it" constructions, past unreal conditionals, non-identifying relative clauses, noun clauses)