Course descriptions

The courses in the IEP are reviewed and updated regularly. With the exception of the IE seminars, the IEP coordinators are responsible for book orders and for uploading the course descriptions on the Aoyama Portal (see note later). The same class of students will take the three different IE courses together, although they will have a different teacher for IE Core, IE Writing, and IE Active Listening. The classes are linked by theme, and some vocabulary and grammatical points are recycled from one course to another. Each student’s grade is a combined score of the three different classes.

IE Core (180 min)

IE Writing (90 min)

IE Active Listening (90 min)

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IE I Themes	IE II Themes	IE III Themes
*Memories and Childhood	*Changing Times	*Psychology
*Urban Life	*The Workplace	*Intercultural  values
*Food	*Geography	*Environment
*Travel	*Autobiography	*The Media

Each IE course builds on the work done at the previous level. Therefore, a teacher at each level of the program has to meet certain expectations of the students who enter their class. This is particularly important for the tasks and objectives in IE Writing. But the same is true for IE Core and IE Active Listening. The following figure outlines the central tasks in IE Core classes and their relative weight in grading. This is to be reflected in each teacher’s curriculum and final grade. Note that as a poster presentation is required in IE II, for IE II students, the Newspaper Discussion will only be worth 25%, and the journal/blog 15%.

Tasks for IE I and II Core Classes

Newspaper discussion (25%)	2 Book reports, oral and written forms (25%)	Maintain a journal or blog (20%)
Xreading assignment (20%)	Homework from Interchange and class participation (10%)

Tasks for IE III Core Class

Newspaper discussion (30%)	2 Book reports, oral and written forms (30%)	Maintain a journal or blog (20%)
Overall participation (5%)	IE III Presentation, Interview, PSA or Commercial (15%)

Teachers can supplement these tasks with additional graded assignments, particularly with tasks related to learning vocabulary. However, they should not forget the primary emphasis on the (above) tasks in IE Core.

There are two other IEP courses, Academic Skills, and Academic Writing which students take in their sophomore year. Academic Skills develops students’ listening and note-taking skills through having them listen to several lectures by professors in the English Department and a few given by guest lecturers.

IE Writing I, II, and III cover writing English paragraphs and essays with quotations and a short bibliography. Academic Writing teaches students how to conduct original research and to write an extended paper. Please review the teacher guides and student booklets for more information about Academic Skills and Academic Writing.

IE Writing I

Writing 3 paragraphs of 150 words:

1. Classification

2. Persuasive

2. Comparison-Contrast

IE Writing II

Introduction to the essay: 2 essays of 350 words:

1. Comparison-Contrast

2. Analysis

IE Writing III

Review the essay form: APA Style for citing sources and references in 2 essays of 350 words:

1. Classification

2. Persuasive

Academic Writing

A  Research Essay of 1,500 words:

1. Creating a bibliography

2. Citing references in APA style

Course Goals. One goal of the IEP is to raise students’ English ability so that they can successfully undertake academic courses taught in English during their junior and senior years. While the emphasis of the program is on the acquisition of language and communication skills, another goal is for students to develop their leadership ability and their imaginative and critical thinking skills. In addition, we hope to expand their awareness of different cultures and global issues. Finally, the program aims to help students acquire the appropriate communicative and intercultural skills that will enable them to participate effectively in intercultural situations.

Grading. IE Core is taught in a weekly 180-minute class. On another day, there is the 90-minute IE Active Listening course and on a third day, a 90-minute IE Writing course. The grade for each student at the end of the term is based on the following formula: 40% for IE Core; 30% for IE Listening, and 30% for IE Writing. The grades for each student must be very precise, calculated numerically, rather by assigning a letter grade as in other courses. As a result, we strongly recommend that every teacher in the program use grading software to enable the teacher to quickly and accurately calculate grades and to weight different assignments appropriately. Some IE teachers use a very effective classroom management system which is available as an iOS and Android app and now has a desktop version (please see: https://www.idoceo.net/).

These grades must be submitted earlier than for other grades at the university because the scores must be combined. They are to be entered through the Aoyama Portal. Unfortunately, because of the combined score, a student who fails one IE class (i.e., by a score of less than 50) will have to repeat all three classes the following semester. It is particularly important to warn freshmen students of this rule several. Repeat the warning in the Fall term.

Plagiarism policy. In 2015, the IEP began to implement new policies and materials to eliminate student plagiarism in essays and other work. Plagiarism of any assignment, in any IE course—including Academic Writing and Academic Skills—will lead to failure on that assignment, without the option to rewrite. If a student plagiarizes on a second assignment, they will fail the entire course.

A copy of this policy is on the second page of each student guide book. Please refer to the page and go over the policy with students at the start of each year. In addition, we require teachers to have their students submit a hard copy of each of their drafts rather than submitting electronic versions. Finally, we require all IE Writing teachers and all Academic Writing teachers to have their students submit the final draft of their paragraph assignments or essay assignments to the English Department database (a process described in a later section of this handbook). On completion, this searchable database, a multi-year project, will eventually enable teachers to determine if their students have plagiarized from another student’s work or from the Internet.

Other courses. Adjunct faculty also teach other courses in the English Department. They include numerous elective courses such as Business English, Advanced Academic Writing, Creative Writing, Global Literature, Journalistic Writing, and Media Studies. The syllabi of all of these courses can be found here:

http://syllabus.aoyama.ac.jp/.

And, here is a partial list of those courses that are outside of the IE Program but taught by teachers who also teach in the IEP:

1. Business English
2. Performance Studies
3. Speech Communication
4. Media Studies
5. Lecture on Communication
6. e-Learning English
7. Creative Writing
8. Journalistic Writing
9. Advanced Academic Writing
10. British Thoughts and Cultures

Since these courses are considered “specialized field courses” (senmon kamoku), teachers who teach them generally must have publications in these areas and their CVs must be inspected by the English Department faculty before a vote is held to determine if the candidate is qualified to take responsibility for the course.