ENGLISH FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE

Degree course: 
Corso di Second cycle degree in COMPUTER SCIENCE
Academic year when starting the degree: 
2019/2020
Year: 
1
Academic year in which the course will be held: 
2019/2020
Course type: 
Various educational activities
Language: 
English
Credits: 
6
Period: 
First Semester
Standard lectures hours: 
48
Detail of lecture’s hours: 
Lesson (48 hours)
Requirements: 

A B2 level is required (CEFRL), common prerequisite for the access to every course.

Final Examination: 
Orale

The goal of the exam is the assessment of the knowledge and abilities described in the “Obiettivi formativi” (Educational objectives) section - the production of an abstract of an academic article.
The exam consists of two parts: a written test and an oral test. The written test will assess the students’ proficiency by means of exercises focused on grammar, syntax, morphology and vocabulary, as well as the reading of an article of which the students will be asked to write the abstract. The oral test will be the presentation of the content of an article chosen by the student, downloaded on the SIGGRAPH platform (see above). The students are asked to present its content as well as its critical analysis.
The oral and the written test score will compose the final score in equal parts (50% for the written and 50% for the oral).
The final score is expressed in thirties.

Assessment: 
Voto Finale

The aim of the course is to enable the students in reading, analysing and writing a specialist article. For this goal, texts downloaded from SIGGRAPH platform (http://kesen.realtimerendering.com/sig2018.html) will be presented and analysed in their morphosynthax, grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, the articles will be object of a further analysis, to learn how an academic text is properly structured. The students will be trained in particular in abstract writing, using the teacher’s guidelines.
At the end of the course, the students will be able to:
1. Understand the content of an academic article
2. Analyse the sections of the article
3. Organise the contents presented in a specialistic article, in order to produce a proper abstract.
4. Use the proper syntax, grammar and morphology, typical of this kind of texts.
The students are asked to develop a critical approach towards the proposed topics, being able to organise a coherent debate in English.

The students will be asked to read and analyse the following articles:
- User-Guided Lip Correction for Facial Performance Capture
- Learning Basketball Dribbling Skills Using Trajectory Optimization and Deep Reinforcement Learning
- FoldSketch: Enriching Garments with Physically Reproducible Folds
- MonoPerfCap: Human Performance Capture from Monocular Video
- Directing Cinematographic Drones

A theoretical deepening about abstract writing will be presented, followed by some practice on how to recognise the different sections of an academic article.
The following grammatical and syntactic aspects will be object of study:
- Tenses’ review
- Linking words
- Passives
- Modal verbs
- Futures
- Objective and subjective questions
- Direct and indirect speech
- If clauses

The analysis of the articles, their grammar and structures will take 8 hours each.
Another 8 hours will be dedicated to the technical aspects of abstract writing (teacher’s slides), and to some practical applications.

For the academic articles, the main reference is the SIGGRAPH 2018 platform (see above).
Advanced Grammar in Use, Martin Hewings, Cambridge – any edition
The content of the lessons will be at the students’ disposal on the e-learning platform of the university, as well as the keys to the exercises.

Convenzionale

The course is organised as a workshop. The students are invited in understanding the content of the article starting from some elements given by the teacher, in order to introduce the topic of the lesson, debating with the colleagues. An article will then be given to the students and it will be analysed.
During the lessons, the students’ active participation is required. Each student will be asked to interact speaking, writing or organising short presentations.

Meeting with the professor by appointment via email to name.surname@uninsubria.it. The professor replies only to signed emails coming from the domain studenti.uninsubria.it.

Professors

CATTANEO VALERIA