University education experience is inherently connected with students’ ability to perceive, analyze, critically assess, and process large volumes of information. Another vital aspect of university education is academic writing relevant to all courses taken by students. The skills and theoretical knowledge necessary for clear, consistent, and well-structured delivery of one’s points is a stepping stone in building a solid background for qualitative university education. The current essay is designed to argue that a specifically developed English Course aimed at improving learners’ language skills is essential for university education preparedness, without which one cannot meet the academic standards.
English 1090 was a valuable learning experience in my educational path. It was a remote learning course that incorporated argumentative essays, discussion posts, and quizzes that were developed for academic writing performance guidance and the enhancement of preparedness for university education. Overall, the concept of preparedness is vital for the field of education. Once new students join a higher educational institution team of learners, they are immediately exposed to a variety of courses, readings, tasks, and essay writing. These multifaceted and complex academic activities are difficult and sometimes even impossible to navigate without a clear understanding of the structure and basic principles of the university educational system. Ultimately, the course of English allows for shaping the students’ understanding of the basic principles of the academic learning process by linguistic means.
During the course, I was able to obtain significant volumes of theoretical guidance as per the specific features of academic English, style characteristics, and vocabulary that predetermine the quality of one’s understanding of university materials. The understanding of the principles according to which the scholarly articles and academic literature as a whole are constructed will help me navigate library sources in my future learning experience. The fundamental difference of scholarly literature from other types of literature is in the goals of unbiased information delivery and argumentative evidence-based ideas development. Therefore, the course has introduced me to the field of academic literature that is essential for proper university education.
In addition to the mere ability to comprehend the complex academic language, students are continuously engaged in the interpretation and presentation of their knowledge, considerations, and viewpoints. For the purposes of clear, unbiased, objective, and well-structured expression of one’s thoughts, a learner should be able to deliver the ideas in commonly accepted form using standard devices. The course materials and practical tasks were aimed at shaping the language utilization skills to the extent that allows for their competent application to the learning practice in future educational activities.
Writing is a pivotal language skill that is inherent to university studies in any field of expertise. The ability to use well-selected, functional, and appropriate vocabulary, sentence structures, collocations, style, and format is a foundation of successful academic writing performance. During the course, I was able to improve my understanding of advanced grammar and paragraph building. I learned that my writing could be of high quality if I maintain the stylistic approach, objective tone, academic vocabulary, and prioritize the reader, who should be able to follow the development of my ideas effortlessly.
In addition to the text-related particularities of academic essay writing, the process-focused guidelines were particularly insightful and practically applicable. The step-by-step approach to essay composing has demonstrated to me the importance of outlining key points, strong theses development, and proofreading. Now, I approach the essay writing process from a qualitatively new perspective, where I construct my theses, main ideas, and concluding points in an outline that I use for further development of my essays. Furthermore, without the knowledge I obtained during the course, I would continue to underestimate the stage of text proofreading. I now realize that this step is essential for achieving a polished and well-developed academic text that necessitates precision, accuracy, and the lack of uncertainties. Therefore, I will use these practical elements in my university education when working on my projects.
The process of writing academic essays of various types is particularly important for academic writing that pursues a variety of goals depending on the context, purpose, and intended audience related to the writing. In particular, I learned how to compose argumentative essays according to the standards of academic writing. Also, the essential elements of argumentative essays, such as the argument, counterargument, and rebuttal, which have been taught during the course, provided a structural basis for my future argumentative writing. Now that I have completed the course, I realize how my understanding of the basic commonly applied principles associated with particular essay types has shaped my opportunities to deliver my opinion in an appropriate and most relevant form.
The inclusion of discussion posts and quizzes in the course was a valuable contribution to the students’ knowledge. When constructing discussion posts, I was able not only to deliver my considerations and opinions on the learned materials but also to practice my writing skills, which was a useful experience. Numerous quizzes allowed for structuring my theoretical knowledge and practice-related insights. Moreover, in the conditions of a remote educational process, the ability to complete quizzes was a valuable opportunity to check and evaluate my knowledge level for further improvement.
Overall, the course incorporated multifaceted and well-arranged classes and tasks that were aimed at building a substantial, practice-focused, and writing skill-forming competence in students. The virtual nature of the learning process provided its benefits and disadvantages. Indeed, online access to materials and tasks was convenient and allowed for more in-depth learning as needed. However, the constraints of isolated learning obstructed free peer support and face-to-face feedback. Moreover, the technical difficulties that sometimes occurred and the lack of face-to-face communication in class made it challenging to maintain a consistent learning process according to the provided instruction. Thus, the conditions of remote education influenced the scope and quality of the learned material.
Conclusively, as my personal experience demonstrates, English Courses focused on shaping learners’ language skills constitute an obligatory part of education since they introduce the fundamental principles and concepts applicable to academic writing. Although the course was taught remotely and has been impacted by technical and communicational challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic-related obstacles, the overall successful completion of the program has allowed for obtaining a valuable learning experience. Upon completing the course, I understand that it would have been challenging for me to meet the academic standards without the theoretical knowledge and practical skills I acquired during the English classes. Materials, instructor’s support, quizzes, discussion posts, and essays have significantly benefited my writing performance and contributed to my preparedness for university education.