Learn English Now: Academic and Professional Analysis
Arizona State University via Coursera Specialization
Overview
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Strengthen the English skills you use to examine information closely and respond with clear reasoning. You begin by distinguishing facts from opinions, identifying purpose, and recognizing bias in discussions of technology and customs. You then move into environmental topics to analyze claims, evidence, and source reliability, before advancing to psychology and sociology, where you evaluate speakers and compare authors' arguments to form well-supported critiques and summaries.
Syllabus
- Course 1: English for Critical Analysis
- Course 2: English for Environmental Analysis
- Course 3: English for Social Analysis
Courses
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Start building your analysis skills through topics that invite close reading and thoughtful response. You begin with technology, where you examine artificial intelligence and big data as you practice separating facts from opinions, spotting generalizations and overgeneralizations, and supporting your own views with evidence. You then turn to customs and cultural perception, using texts and video to identify an author's purpose, recognize positive and negative bias, and consider how customs shape meaning. Across vocabulary work, comprehension checks, instructional activities, skill practice, interactions, quizzes, and evaluation tasks, you strengthen the language you need to analyze ideas rather than just react to them. By the end of the course, you will be able to explain purpose, bias, and factual support more clearly and express your own perspective in English with stronger reasoning.
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Take the next step in analysis by focusing on how evidence works in environmental topics. In the first half of the course, you explore nature and ecology through scientific reading, learning to identify claims and supporting evidence, ask guiding questions, and analyze how changes such as trophic cascades affect ecosystems. You then shift to sustainability, where you investigate organic farming and related practices while testing the reliability and credibility of sources, separating facts from opinions, and weighing the strengths and weaknesses of competing arguments. Through vocabulary work, readings, comprehension checks, instructional activities, skill practice, interactions, quizzes, and evaluation tasks, you build a more precise way to read and discuss environmental information in English. By the end of the course, you will be able to analyze environmental claims more carefully and form informed, evidence-based opinions.
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Bring your analytical English skills into social topics that require careful judgment and comparison. You begin with psychology, exploring the science of happiness as you evaluate a speaker's credibility, judge the strength of arguments, distinguish facts from opinions, and form critiques supported by evidence. You then move into sociology, where you read about intergenerational workplace dynamics and examine how multiple authors build their arguments, what evidence they use, and where their reasoning is strong or weak. Through videos, readings, vocabulary, comprehension checks, instructional activities, skill practice, interactions, quizzes, and evaluation tasks, you practice synthesizing perspectives instead of considering each source in isolation. By the end of the course, you will be able to critique speakers and authors more confidently and write or discuss clearer critical summaries in English.
Taught by
John Deal, Director ASU Global Launch