Course description
The English for Academic Purposes online course for life sciences students is taught by teachers from the language institute Babel. This course teaches students how to write academic texts and give academic presentations in English. It focuses on the formalities, vocabulary, and conventions specific to academic science writing and speaking.
The course involves seven plenary online meetings and three e-learning modules, and students must invest 3-5 hours of self-study per week.
To pass the course, students must attend at least six online plenary meetings, give a presentation, complete all e-learning modules, and submit a paper.
Faculty
Teachers from Babel, Utrecht.
Course coordination from GSLS by Anastasia Kurysheva, PhD (
A.Kurysheva@umcutrecht.nl).
Registration
Please note: This course is offered by an external provider and is expensive. Sign up in a responsible way, as dropouts will disable fellow students from participating in the course and create unnecessary costs for the School which prevent other courses from happening.
Registration for the course will be through OSIRIS Student. If the number of registrations exceeds the number of spots, priority will be given to second-year students. The rest of the places will be assigned by lottery. In the table below the corresponding registration periods (code) for each edition have been added under the group number to indicate which one you should use when registering via
OSIRIS Student. More information about the registration procedure can be found
here on the GSLS Students' Site.
The maximum number of participants per group is 10, the minimum is 4.
Content
The course is taught six times a year. The exact dates are displayed in the table below.
Teaching Schedule
The lessons in this course are taught between 19:15 and 21:15. Before the start of the course, Babel will send you information about the classes, the online learning environment for the e-modules, and will ask you to perform a placement test (see details below).
| Group: |
group 1 |
group 2 |
group 3 |
group 4 |
group 5 |
group 6 |
| OSIRIS: |
BMS_P1_A |
BMS_P2_A |
BMS_P2_B |
BMS_P3_A |
BMS_P4_A |
BMS_P4_B |
| |
Monday |
Monday |
Wednesday |
Monday |
Monday |
Wednesday |
| 1 |
04-09-2023 |
13/11/2023 |
15/11/2023 |
05/02/2024 |
22/04/2024 |
24/04/2024 |
| 2 |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
| 3 |
18/09/2023 |
27/11/2023 |
29/11/2023 |
19/02/2024 |
06/05/2024 |
08/05/2024 |
| 4 |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
| 5 |
02/10/2023 |
11/12/2023 |
13/12/2023 |
04/03/2024 |
27/05/2024 |
22/05/2024 |
| 6 |
09/10/2023 |
18/12/2023 |
20/12/2023 |
11/03/2024 |
03/06/2024 |
29/05/2024 |
| 7 |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
e-module |
| 8 |
23/10/2023 |
15/01/2024 |
17/01/2024 |
25/03/2024 |
17/06/2024 |
12/06/2024 |
| 9 |
30/10/2023 |
22/01/2024 |
24/01/2024 |
08/04/2024 |
24/06/2024 |
19/06/2024 |
| 10 |
06/11/2023 |
29/01/2024 |
31/01/2024 |
15/04/2024 |
01/07/2024 |
26/06/2024 |
| reserve |
13/11/2023 |
05/02/2024 |
07/02/2024 |
22/04/2024 |
08/07/2024 |
03/07/2024 |
Prerequisite knowledge
Before the start of the course, you will receive an invitation from Babel (cursuscoordinatie@babel.nl) to a placement test. This test takes 60 minutes and is obligatory to determine your starting level. The educational content of this course will be tailored to your current level of English. Babel's placement test can be found here.
If you are a student from a Master’s programme not affiliated with the GSLS, we kindly ask you to contact the course coordinator before signing up for this course in order to determine if the course fits with your study programme.
Literature/study material used:
Textbook (Science Research Writing), e-learning modules, and where appropriate, PDFs or weblinks (for example to grammar exercises) will be shared with students with supplementary information or materials.
Mandatory for students in Master’s programme
N.A.
Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programmes
Yes.