Advanced English Academic Summary

Course Overview and Objectives

• This intermediate English course serves as a continuation of the multi-skill English course E-099.
• The curriculum focuses on the consolidation of four skills through teaching materials covering advanced vocabulary, grammar, listening, writing, and speaking.
• Key grammatical focus areas include future forms, conditionals, reported speech, and question tags.

Unit 1: Academic Success and Verbal Advice

• Success Strategies: Success in exams requires time management across three stages: before the semester (registration and credit hour management), during the semester (active class participation and note-taking), and during the exam (planning and question selection).
• Idiomatic Expressions: Essential education-related idioms include "piece of cake" (very easy), "hit the books" (start studying hard), and "pass with flying colors" (pass with distinction).
• Grammar (Present Tenses): The Present Simple describes general truths and habits, while the Present Continuous indicates progressive actions or temporary situations. State verbs (emotions, mental states, senses, and possession) typically appear only in simple tenses unless their meaning changes to imply an action.
• Present Perfect vs. Continuous: The Present Perfect Simple ($have/has + \text{past participle}$) links the past and present, often denoting completed actions with present results. The Present Perfect Continuous ($have/has + been + v-ing$) emphasizes the duration of an action starting in the past and continuing now.

Unit 2: Fashion History and Future Projections

• History of Jeans: Denim trousers date back to the 1800s, originally designed for hard labor performed by miners, cowboys, and farmers. Levi Strauss is credited with inventing blue jeans, which were dyed with indigo.
• Grammar (Future Forms):
  • Will: Used for spontaneous decisions, offers, and personal predictions.
  • Going to: Used for planned intentions and predictions based on evidence.
  • Present Continuous: Indicates personal arrangements with specific time or place details.
  • Future Continuous: ($will + be + v-ing$) describes actions in progress at a specific future time.
  • Future Perfect: ($will + have + \text{past participle}$) denotes actions completed before a certain future point.

Unit 3: Global Leadership and Conditional Logic

• Royal Address: In a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on 10 March 2015, His Majesty King Abdullah II emphasized that the fight against terrorism is a fight for the values of Islam and humanity. He highlighted the dangers of Islamophobia and the need for international cooperation to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
• Conditional Types:
  • Type 1: Real future possibilities ($if + \text{present, will/can/should} + \text{base}$).
  • Type 2: Imaginary/unreal present or future situations ($if + \text{past, would/could/might} + \text{base}$).
  • Type 3: Past unreal conditions ($if + \text{past perfect, would have} + \text{past participle}$).
• Reported Speech: When reporting statements, tenses shift backward (e.g., Simple Present to Simple Past) and pronouns/time references are updated (e.g., "today" becomes "that day").

Unit 4: Literary Genius and Narrative Structures

• William Shakespeare: Born in 1564 and died on 23 April 1616. He is considered the greatest playwright for his verbal genius and ability to establish intimacy with a diverse audience of aristocrats, sailors, and merchants.
• Narrative Tenses: These include the Past Simple for sequences of events, Past Continuous for activities in progress, Past Perfect for actions completed before a past point, and Past Perfect Continuous for long continuous past actions.
• Habitual Past: "Used to" describes finished past habits or states. "Would" describes repetitive past actions but cannot be used for past states (e.g., "I used to have a car" cannot be replaced by "would").

Unit 5: Organizational Ethics and Relative Modification

• Work Ethics: Core values include dedication (commitment to excellence), accountability (reliability and keeping promises), and integrity (teamwork and cooperation).
• Relative Clauses:
  • Restrictive (Defining): Necessary to specify the noun (e.g., "The book which I checked out").
  • Non-Restrictive (Non-defining): Adds extra information and is separated by commas. The pronoun "that" cannot be used here.

Unit 6: Athletic Legends and Conditional Variations

• Muhammad Ali: Originally born Asius Marcellus Clay Jr. in 1942, he converted to Islam in 1975. He was a three-time world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist who later became a United Nations messenger of peace.
• Conditionals (Zero and Third): Zero Conditional refers to facts/general truths ($if + \text{present, present}$). Third Conditional refers to regret or imaginary past outcomes that did not happen.

Unit 7: Intercultural Communication and Indirect Querying

• Culture and Body Language: Cultural differences manifest in nonverbal acts such as smiling (friendliness in U.S./Arab cultures vs. specific happiness in Germany), eye contact (respectful briefness in Asia), and punctuality (flexible in Jordan/Argentina vs. strict in Germany/U. S.).
• Indirect Interrogatives: Reported questions lose subject-auxiliary inversion and end with a period. Yes-no questions are introduced with "if" or "whether."
• Question Tags: Short additions to statements to seek agreement or confirmation ($Positive Statement, Negative Tag?$ / $Negative Statement, Positive Tag?$).

Unit 8: Peace Advocacy and Descriptive Language

• Peace and Non-violence: Violence is a learned behavior rooted in negative intent or conflict of interest. Establishing a global culture of peace requires education and the rejection of discrimination based on race, religion, or nationality.
• Adjectives vs. Adverbs: Adjectives modify nouns (e.g., "careful driver"), whereas adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs (e.g., "drives carefully").
• Participles: "-ed" participles describe feelings (e.g., "I am bored"), while "-ing" participles describe the cause of the feeling (e.g., "the film is boring").

Unit 9: Archaeological Heritage and Passive Constructions

• Petra Heritage: Located $262 \text{ km}$ south of Amman, Petra was built by the Nabataean Arabs $2,000$ years ago. It was rediscovered in 1812 by Swiss explorer Johan Ludwig Burckhardt. Notable features include the "Siq" and the "Treasury" (Al Khazna).
• Passive Voice: Formed using ($be + \text{past participle}$). It is used when the doer is unknown, unimportant, or to describe processes and news. Special patterns include modals ($\text{must be fixed}$), verbs with two objects, and reporting verbs ($\text{it is said that...}$).

Questions & Discussion

Giving Medical Advice (Unit 1, Lesson 5):

• Patient: Doctor, I’ve lately started suffering a lot. I find it difficult to breathe and I can’t stop coughing. I’m a heavy smoker. I tried to quit, but I couldn’t. What can I do to quit it?
• Doctor: First, you should have the will and determination to quit. You shouldn’t think about decreasing the number of cigarettes, but you should keep them and the ashtrays out of sight. You might try doing some exercises. Why don’t you get busy doing anything? You should drink much water.

Shopping for Clothes (Unit 2, Lesson 5):

• Shop Assistant: Hi. Can I help you?
• Girl: Well….I want to buy a trouser and a blouse.
• Shop Assistant: Ok…we have lots of pants. Do you want jeans or other fabrics?
• Girl: I want blue jeans, with a blouse to go with them.
• Shop Assistant: I’ll get you two pants and blouses to try on. … Where is your fitting room?
• Girl: It’s to the right. … I think I’ll take the pants and the red blouse. How much do they cost?
• Shop Assistant: Today is the first day of discount. There’s a $30\%$ off on all items. How do you want to pay; by credit card or cash?
• Girl: I’ll pay by credit card.