Rationale:
We live in a highly competitive global multi-lingual environment and our students will need to gain the necessary skills to function. This module will enable students to function more confidently in their contacts within such an environment. It will teach both productive skills (speaking and writing) and in order for students to operate in familiar work contexts and receptive skills (listening and reading) but with a bias towards the spoken word.
It will provide students with the opportunity to understand not only the language but also the culture. The impact of intercultural skills is now recognised and valued. We live in a highly competitive global multi-lingual environment and companies are increasingly aware of the advantages of recruiting people with language skills. Today’s graduates need the ability to speak to and get on with people from different cultures as organisations that ignore language and culture issues maybe significantly less successful than those that rise to the challenge of developing an awareness of these in the context of the industry.
This module will allow students to gain skills and knowledge that are vital for work in a global context. Students will be encouraged to use their own autonomy in learning within a systematic programme-particularly in regard to the foreign language part of the module.
This rationale is a generic description and can be used for a range of languages and their cultures.