International students come from other cultures, which often have different cultural standards. These other standards also apply in everyday university life, more precisely in scientific writing and presentation. The aim of the two events is therefore first of all to inform the international students about the cultural standards in the German scientific community when writing and presenting („What is actually expected of me?“) And then to practice or apply the corresponding standards. In addition, international students often come from school systems in which they had little or no opportunity to learn or practice oral presentation. To ensure equal opportunities for international students, therefore, special support is important.

The two events: „Scientific Writing: Writing Workshop“ and „Scientific Presenting: Speech Workshop“ are offered at the rate of two hours per week for a semester. The two events are aimed exclusively at international students. Both events are always well attended (20-25 participants on average) and 2.5 ECTS each can be obtained – although more and more students take part in the events that visit the events without external incentive because they simply need the support.

1. „Scientific Writing: Schreibwerkstatt“

The event is structured according to the following elements:

– Requirements for students
– preparatory work for writing a scientific paper (selection and limitation of topics)
– Research / Literature
– Excercise
– summarize / paraphrase
– Exposé
– time and self management
– Formal – Outline
– Introduction
– Bulk
– Conclusion / conclusion
– plagiarism
– Quote
– Bibliography
– Submission

Right at the beginning, each student chooses his or her topic using the methods of Brainstorming and Mindmapping.

Everybody works on the different content points of the event, thus putting them into practice for his or her topic. However, the individual points are initially outlined in the form of classroom teaching. For example, it first clarifies what an exposé is, what its destination is and how it is made. All these questions are not only clarified in the classroom, but – using a computer and a video projector – a subject is spontaneously suggested by the course participants and an exposé is prepared with the course participants, which is then made available to everyone via Moodle. After the lesson, each student prepares his or her own exposé. Thus, in the course of the semester, a small piece of homework is created in which all points relevant to a scientific thesis are worked out examplarily. The aim is not that complete chores are made (there is no time in the course), but, for example, an outline should be set out to be edited. At the end of the event, each student should know how to write a scientific paper at a German university in German. Not only do students have the opportunity during the course of the event to receive feedback on their texts, but they can also receive writing support later on.

2. „Scientific Presentation: Speech Workshop“

The event is structured according to the following contents:
– Find a topic, narrow down
– self motivation / time management
– Literature research: where and how?
– Write outline
– formulate presentation (structure, formal, introduction, main part, final …)
– Prepare presentation
– Visualization (what and how?)
– Speech anxiety?
– Practice the presentation
– Check the duration of the speech
– rhetoric (body language, facial expressions, gestures, volume, emphasis)
– practice in front of an audience
– Dealing with possible malfunctions
– Handouts

This event is organized according to the same principle and in a similar way:

Every student chooses his or her topic right from the beginning and works on the various content related events. However, the focus of this event is the oral language, or the practice of acquitted examinations. For this purpose, a video camera will be used in the event. As soon as we have prepared the course „Introduction“, each student is asked to prepare a 3-minute introduction, which will then be filmed. After discussing feedback rules, the short videos will be shown and discussed in plenary. Each student receives his or her own personal feedback, which has an enormous influence on the further way of working. At the end of the event there is a complete 10-minute presentation.

The success or risk factor of these two events is the time: Once the students – perceived subjectively or objectively – have no more time to attend these events regularly and actively participate, these events may fail. Unfortunately, it is often the very students who most need to attend these events who feel they have no time to attend these events because they need to learn a lot during their studies. Unfortunately, these students often fail when they have to prepare and present their scientific thesis on their own.

Transferability

These two events could and should be offered at any university – preferably compulsory – for all international students. Especially recommended would be the visit of the two events at the beginning of the study.

Promotion: financed by the university

These two events have been offered since the winter semester 2010/11. Since then both events have been continuously attended by about 20 – 25 students per event and semester.