INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE


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ENGLISH FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE

This course is divided into twelve 80-minute sessions, and designed to provide students with the tools, knowledge and practice to deliver a scientific presentation at the end of the semester.
COURSE CONTENTS
# SKILLS AND ACTIVITIES
1 Listening: Big-O Notation
Speaking: Pronunciation of technical terms
2 Listening & Writing: Note-taking and summarizing
3 Listening: Press reviews
4 Listening: Enigma
Speaking: Stress
Vocabulary building: Colloquial vocabulary for presentations
5 Writing: Process descriptions
Vocabulary building: Explaining the structure of presentations
6 Listening & Speaking: Points of view / Debating
Writing: Punctuation
7 Listening & Reading: Algorithms
Speaking: Intonation
8 Listening: Digital Art
Presentating: Effective delivery
9 In-class preparation
10, 11, 12 Presentations


SESSIONS
  1. Big-o Notation
  2. Notes
  3. Press reviews
  4. Enigma
  5. Process descriptions
  6. Points of view
  7. Algorithms
  8. Digital art
  9. In-class prep

COURSEBOOK

Click on the image to download your English coursebook.

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ASSESSMENT

The module is assessed through 100% continuous assessment. You will be assessed on:

Test percentages
  • Two written tests (50% of the final grade)
    • One multiple-choice language test for which you will prepare using the distance learning activities on MADOC. This will count for 10% of the final grade (20% of the written grade) and will be taken on MADOC. Your group teacher will tell you when to take the test.
    • One written test that will combine listening comprehension and writing. You will be given an audio document that will be between 15 and 30 minutes long. You will have to write a summary on the contents of the document in your own words (250 words, +/- 10%). The document will be made available on MADOC at a date your group teacher will specify. You will have two days from then to upload your text on the submission space on MADOC. (40% of the final grade, 80% of the written grade)

  • Oral presentation (50% of the final grade)

TESTS
  1. ONLINE

    1. Madoc online test (Pass/Fail)

  2. WRITING

    1. Language tools (10%)
    2. Written test (40%)

  3. SPEAKING

    1. Presentation (50%)

Check your English coursebook for more informatin on tests.

ASSIGNMENT

In groups of three, you will be asked to prepare a LITERATURE REVIEW on a topic of your choice.

  1. You will prepare and present an oral presentation on a topic of your choice related to your field of study: your presentation should give an overview of the question, putting various sources in perspective. It should be structured, documented and personal (i.e. in your own words).

    You will have approximately 15 minutes (per group) to present your work and will be expected to use appropriate presentation tools.

    Following your presentation, you will be expected to answer questions from the audience.

    According to the “Dublin descriptors” that define international standards for learning outcomes at university, completion of a Bachelor’s degree means that students should be able to “communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and nonspecialist audiences.” Your presentation should therefore be clear even to non-specialists.

  2. You will be asked to ask questions after one of your fellow students’ group presentation. You will not present yourselves but should be sufficiently prepared to react to the proposed presentation.

  3. For all oral presentations: you will have to make notes during the presentations and ask questions.

AIM & LEARNING OBJECTIVES
  • Language and communication:
    • Developing your knowledge of specific vocabulary in context • Improving oral and presentation skills

  • Scientific communication:
    • Practicing oral synthesis
    • Interacting with a speaker/an audience


PRESENTATION
  • 3-student teams

  • Scientific topic (Computer Science)

  • 15-minute presentation

  • Audience takes notes

  • Questions & Answers
ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Presentations will take place in the last 3 sessions. You will receive individual marks based on your oral presentation (assessing content, communication, and language) as well as on your involvement in questioning. Marking sheets for oral presentations will be published in due time.



Group 690-691 presentations will take place on 2 June 2021

1. ACADEMIC AND TECHNICAL VOCABULARY


SESSION 1

Big-O Notation

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Image credit: Daniel Miessler


Big O notation is a mathematical notation that describes the limiting behavior of a function when the argument tends towards a particular value or infinity. Big O is a member of a family of notations invented by Paul Bachmann, Edmund Landau, and others, collectively called Bachmann–Landau notation or asymptotic notation.
Read more...


STRUCTURE

  Introduction to the course

  • Course contents
  • Assessment
  • Assignment
  • Objectives
  • Oral presentations

  Watching

  • Big-O Notation

  Comprehension

  • Fill in the blanks
  • Identifying main information & ideas

  Speaking

  • Pronunciation of technical terms

PART 1

A. VOCABULARY

Match the following words with their definition (click on the play buttons to listen to the correct pronunciation of these technical terms).

Word Definition
   1. Array a. Data or similar information fed into a program.
   2. Runtime b. The period during which a program is executing
or length of time it takes to execute.
   3. Scaling c. A collection of elements that all have the same
data type and are stored contiguously in memory.
   4. Input d. The fact of becoming bigger.


IN-CLASS

Do this exercise on your own, and then discuss your answers with your nearest classmate.


DISTANCE LEARNING

Send your guesses to your teacher, using the dedicated iDoceo Connect platform (only for groups specified above).


B. COMPREHENSION (section 1)

Watch section one of the video (beginning-4'38").


Answer the following questions about the video.

1. What does Big-O notation describe?


2. The south African company that set up the 2009 data race between a pigeon and the country's internet service provider was fustrated by...


3. How far apart were the two offices they used for their 2009 stunt?


4. Why is the test ridiculous?


5. True or False. The variable used in big-o notation represents the rate of growth of the input.



REMEMBER!!

The marks obtained in the online exercises will NOT be taken into account for your final mark. So don't be scared to make mistakes and answer all questions even if you're not 100% sure that your answers are correct.


IN-CLASS

Do this exercise on your own, and then discuss your answers with your nearest classmate.


DISTANCE LEARNING

Send your guesses to your teacher, using the dedicated iDoceo Connect platform (only for groups specified above).

C. COMPREHENSION (section 2)

Now watch part two of the video (4'38"-end)


1. Complete the following sentences with words or expressions from the video to explain the four rules of Big-O notation.

RULE 1:
If you have two different steps in your algorithm, you (1) those steps. This will happen, for example, if you have an algorithm that first (2) one array and then (3) another array.


RULE 2:
You (4) constants. So for instance if you want to print out the min and max (5) in an array and you have two algorithms, one that finds the min (6) and then finds the max element (7) , and the other that finds the min and max simultaneously, those two algorithms will both get (8) as O(n) if n is the size of the array. The fact that there are two different (9) does not mean that you will describe the first algorithm as O(2n) because you are looking at how things (10) roughly.


RULE 3:
If you have different inputs, they will usually get represented by different (11) so if you have two arrays and you're (12) them to (13) the number of elements they have in common, the runtime is O(a * b) where a and b represent the sizes of the two arrays. The runtime is not O(n2) because then n would not represent anything.


RULE 4:
You drop (14) . If you have an algorithm that prints out the biggest element in an array and them prints all (15) in the array, the runtime of the algorithm is going to be O(n2) because it’s the n2 that is going to determine how the runtime changes here.


2. What are the Big-O representations of the following operations?

a. Finding an element in a sorted collection of items using binary search:


b. Finding the first element of an array:


c. Performing linear search in a square matrix:


d. Finding an element in a sorted collection of items using binary search:


Source: Video tutorial by Gayle Laakmann McDowell,
https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/ctci-big-o/problemz



IN-CLASS

Do this exercise on your own, and then discuss your answers with your nearest classmate.


DISTANCE LEARNING

Send your guesses to your teacher, using the dedicated iDoceo Connect platform (only for groups specified above).

PART 2

D. PRONUNCIATION OF TECHNICAL TERMS

Watch and learn.

Xiaomi - Cyan - Cache - Verbatim - Yosemite - Meme - Adobe - Linux - OS X - Bose - Tag Heuer - Nokia - Huawei - Analytics - Quark - GIF - Asus - Patent - LaCie

Source: https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/how-do-i-pronounce-3606383/

Computer Science technical terms. Click on to know how these words are pronounced.

Term Term Term Term
   !    Array    Hierarchical    Niche
   #    Bandwidth    Inheritance    Pwned
   #!    Bin    Int    Regex
   *    BIOS    Iteration    Router
   ^    Char    LaTeX    SQL
   |    Daemon    Lib    Sudo
   Algorithm    Data    Locale
IN-CLASS

Compete against your nearest classmate. Who can pronounce more words correctly?


DISTANCE LEARNING

Practice on your own.
REMEMBER that the secret to perfect pronunciation is simply repeating and repeating terms until you sound like a pro.



Address

2 Rue de la Houssinière
Building 2 - Office 109
Nantes 44322 cedex 3

Contact

UNantes email
Caminha.org email

Other links

Madoc
iDoceo Connect
Word Wall