Video Transcript
_{First, we want to introduce you to the structure of teaching degrees at our university. So, before we focus on the Bachelor of Education English in the next tutorials, we would first like to introduce you and give you an overview of the broader context of your study program, the Bachelor of Education English.} 

_{Let’s have a look at this overview of the career path of a teacher: You've opted for a teaching degree. Now, teacher education is structured into different phases: from the pre-university phase via the while-university phase to the post-university phase. So, after you've completed your A-levels, you have decided on a teaching degree and you have applied for the corresponding degree. All of this you have already accomplished and completed in the pre-uni phase. Now, part of the application requirements is that you take an obligatory and self-evaluation questionnaire. And this is a special self-evaluation questionnaire because it is directed at aspiring teachers and it's a form of career counseling. All of this, as already indicated, you have done, you have completed, so that before-phase is completed with your enrolment. The next phase is your education at university. This phase is structured in two parts and two study programs: the Bachelor of Education; and you commence your studies in the Bachelor of Education right now. After having completed the Bachelor of Education, there is the Master of Education and in each study program you have a minimum of two majors and optionally also a third subject. In addition, then you also have courses in educational science, and you have teacher training phases, both in the Bachelor of Education and in the Master of Education. Finally, then with the completion of the Master of Education degree, the road to becoming a full teacher is not yet completed because there is a post-university part of your education: most importantly, the teacher training that is necessary for you to become full teachers.} 

_{At this point, let’s introduce you to the Tübingen School of Education. It is the central institution for teacher education at our university, and it connects all departments and institutes involved in teacher education. Student counseling might be of central importance to you, student counseling that does not relate to a specific subject, but to the coordination of all the subjects in your teaching degrees. And there is a central orientation meeting that is of crucial importance to you and that takes place in the official orientation weeks for new students. All information regarding that meeting is on our website.} 

_{Now, as promised, let's focus a bit more on the while-uni phase, on the university part of your career path. This part comes with two study programs, the Bachelor and the Master of Education. And let's focus specifically on the Bachelor of Education. At this point, we’re not so much interested in educational science or your second subject or your third subject, if that is the case. Let’s focus on your major English. We distinguish between subject-related areas of studies and the teaching-related area of study. You might notice all these numbers and the abbreviation CP here. It's crucial for you to understand what CP stands for. CP is an abbreviation that stands for credit points. So, let’s elaborate a bit on the significance of credit points: Credit points refer to a more general framework of what we call ECTS (European Credit Transfer System). Credit points can be compared to an academic currency. Students are granted a specific number of credit points for courses they complete successfully. So, while you pursue your studies in the Bachelor of Education, you take courses and you accumulate credit points. Your sum total is 180 ECTS if your studies include two majors. So, to earn your bachelor's degree, you have to earn those 180 credit ports. In your major, English, you're taking several courses; some fall into the domain of subject-related studies and some fall into the domain of teaching-related studies. You earn a total of 81 credit points and 72 credit points are earned in the subject-related parts of the program and 9 credits are earned in the teaching-related part of the program.} 

Video Transcript
_{In this video, we want to introduce you to the structure of your study program in the Bachelor of Education English and that means introducing you to the different areas of study. There are five core areas of study and let’s briefly sketch the agenda of each area of study. So, let's start with literary studies. Literary studies focuses on the interpretation of texts and the analysis of their function from historical and cultural perspectives across different periods from early modern times to the present time. The courses contents we offer relate to different genres from poetry, drama to narrative texts and the overall objective is to cover both canonized and very new, contemporary literatures from Great Britain, from the United States, but also from other branches of the English-speaking world, for example, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and so on. Next up, cultural studies. In cultural studies, you will be introduced to concepts and methods for the study of culture and you will get an overview of various theories of culture and also approaches in the field of cultural studies. And, you will explore how these theories and approaches can be applied to a broad variety of cultural products: photography, film, music, dance, just to name a few examples. Next up, English linguistics. Now, linguistics deals with language as a system, language as a means of communication and the historical development of English. So, you'll become familiar with linguistic analysis and core methods in theoretical as well as applied linguistics. You will learn to evaluate language phenomena and also research results. Next up, teaching English as a foreign language. This is the teaching-related part of your study program. So, this is a unique part of the Bachelor of Education study program. The field of teaching English as a foreign language develops theories, models and concepts of teaching language, literature and media in the English classroom. You will then get a chance to put the theory into practice in your teacher training. Last but certainly not least, academic English. Academic English focuses on advancing students language skills and advancing them to an academic level. So, you will improve your language skills, that is both your productive skills, writing and speaking, and your receptive skills, reading and listening. If you want to find out more about the different areas of study, you can go back to our special website for new students. One component of the starter kit for new students is getting to know the Bachelor of Education English. An overview of the different areas of study is provided there and you can also find out a bit about each area of study by clicking on the Find Out More button. All areas of study are included. The structure is always the same. First of all, you have a short text that summarizes the core ideas and objectives of the area of study. And then you have a study sample. In literary studies, for example, there is a poem by William Wordsworth and a video lecture by one of our literary studies professors. And then, there is an interactive element where you can now become active and you can try to test your preliminary literary study skill in this area.} 

Video Transcript

_{Now, in all areas of study, you will complete courses; you will attend and complete courses with the designated amount of credit points, ECTS. But how is the coursework structured? There is the so-called modular structure of the course program. So, let’s introduce you to a fancy new term that you are going to have to adopt: the term module. A module is defined as a self-contained individual unit of study. So, a module usually consists of more than one course but there are exceptions. There are single-course modules, but that is really rare. A module is really one building block and that consists of several courses. There are three module levels: There are courses that belong to the basic module. Then, there are courses that belong to the advanced module level, and there are courses that belong to the focus module level. So, you see that there is progression, a step-by-step development of knowledge and skills. First, the basic module, then the advanced module and, finally, the focus module. Now, how does this idea of modules correlate with the different areas of study? Let’s look at the curriculum of the Bachelor of Education English. Curriculum here means simply the sum total of all components of study, of all modules and in each area of study. If we look at the curriculum, we have two trajectories here. We have a horizontal axis that describes the different areas of study: literary and cultural studies, linguistics, teaching English as a foreign language, and academic English. And then we have a vertical axis. And on this vertical axis, you have the regular duration of study for the Bachelor of Education. So, the idea is that you can complete the Bachelor of Education in three years, that is a total of 6 semesters completing all required courses in all study areas. What you get then is a grid that suggest when to take courses and modules during the course your studies. Please note that this is a projected version of an ideal course of study. Your individual course of study can vary and that is not a problem!}

_{In the Starter Kit, there is one website that is called recommended courses in the first semester. On this site, you will get a summary and then also a more detailed overview of the recommend coursework: Academic Writing I in the Basic Module Academic English and the Basic Module Literary Studies. You can find direct links to the course catalog on alma. In short: These are the courses for the first semester courses that you need to take. We suggest you take the Basic Module Literary Studies and one course in the Basic Module Academic English. If, for whatever reason, you want to take more courses in English, go with the lecture in the Basic Module English Linguistics. If you have to learn new languages for your first or second subject (e.g. Latin or Greek), you may want to focus only on the course Academic Writing I.}

_{Good to know: Lectures are open for a large amount of students and in most cases there is no limitation to the number of students. Also, one of the identifying elements of introductory lectures is that they are offered by several professors, so you get to know different professors from the English department. With seminars, there is a limited amount of places and each seminar is taught by a different instructor.}

_{So, one of the key demands and one of the key challenges of your first weeks as a university student will be to put together your individual schedule; and that is not what you are used to from school. Rather than being handed a schedule, you have to put your schedule together yourselves.}

PDF Manual

_{This video tutorial is intended to help all first semester students navigate through the alma platform. After watching this video, you will hopefully have learned how to enrol yourself in the basic module courses recommended for the first semster.} 

_{By now, you should have all gotten your login information, your credentials (login ID and password). First thing you want to do, is select your preferred language: simply change it to English or German right on top of the page. Now, the next step is very important: in order to enrol in courses, please open the container my studies, then click on planner studies with module plan, and then Bachelor of Education English. The following page contains your entire module plan for you to sign up for the right courses make sure it says show module plan on top otherwise this will all be a bit more confusing.} 

_{Let’s first check out how to enrol for the academic English seminar Academic Writing. All you have to do is open the container BM, that is the Basic Module Academic English. The upper section of this container is not of particular importance to you; this is the so-called exam section which you will have to worry about later in the semester. For now, all you have to focus on is the course section below. By clicking on the button apply, you will then be taken to the following page which lists all of the parallel groups of this module. This part is probably the most time consuming part of your course selection. The reason being that students usually have several other commitments during the week: be it other courses, work, care work etc. So, you have to choose from a number of different parallel groups which essentially are the same courses being taught at different times of the week. This allows you to structure your weekly schedule a bit more freely. You have a total of four priorities that you can submit. Due to the limited space of each seminar, you will not be guaranteed your first priority but you will quite certainly be enrolled into one of your four priorities. While it is possible to indicate just one or even two priorities, you definitely increase your chances of getting enrolled by indicating all four. All you have to do is click on the action field with drop down that either says priority 1 or 2 or 3 and so on. Please note that you do not have to go with the four priorities: you can still change the order to whatever is most convenient for you during the registration phase. It is also important to mention that you can only select each priority once. You will then be taken to the confirmation page. If you do happen to change your mind you can still either change your priorities or even sign off from the entire course. Just make sure you do this before the end of the deadline though.} 

_{Moving on to the introduction to literary studies lecture. This shouldn't take too long: all you need to do is go back to the page containing the overview of your module plan. You will then need to select the Basic Module again, Basic Module Literary Studies. You should now see the introduction to literary studies containe. Just another thing to keep in mind: lectures are usually abbreviated with the letter L and seminars with the letter S and as we did with your Academic English seminar, you simply click on apply on the right which will take you to the enrollment page. This module only offers one lecture. So, you unfortunately do not have any other alternative to choose from. In that case, click on enrol. You can technically still sign yourself off if you change your mind.} 

_{Lastly, the seminar in the Basic Module literary studies. Enrolling here can again be a bit more difficult here. Still, it essentially works exactly as we did with the other two courses. Again, simply click on the apply button to your right, you will then be directed to the enrollment page. Again, here you need to choose your four priorities once again. Just to remind you one last time: the seminars all have the same workload and credit points. What is different is well the dates and time slots, the assigned instructor and tutor. Having chosen your priorities, you click on enrol now and you should be all set.} 

_{Thank you!} 

_{Post scriptum: If you want to check your applications and enrolments, make sure to get an overview via the respective alma functions.}