Bachelors Degree (B.A.)

The student advisor for the Bachelor of Arts in the Anglistik section is Mr Brian Rozema.

mailto: brozema@uni-bielefeld.de

The eKVV is the electronic course catalogue. Each semester, some time before the start of lectures, students are asked to register via the eKVV for the courses they are planning to take in the coming semester. On eKVV, you have the possibility to register for various courses, save them in your built-in weekly calendar, inform yourself about the modules where the courses belong, follow on updates and news (e.g., regarding the current Corona situation), and do a lot more.

Costs and financing options

General information on costs and funding can be found at  https://www.uni-bielefeld.de/studium/studieninteressierte/informationen/finanzierung/

Costs and financing options for international students

International students will find information on costs and financing options for their stays at https://uni-bielefeld.de/studium/studieninteressierte/informationen/finanzierung/index.xml/

BAföG

The Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz (BAföG), the German Federal Training Assistance Act, regulates student loans and grants. After their third or typically during their fourth semesters, students receiving BAföG require confirmation for the BAföG office that they have successfully completed a portion of their studies and are eligible for further support. For most courses of study, this usually means that students should have completed the seminars for Basic Modules 1, 2 and 3 and have taken the BM3 exam, written the BM2 paper and taken the BM1 module exam, the Language Proficiency Test. 

The proof for the BAföG office is provided via BAföG Form 5 https://www.bafög.de/bafoeg/shareddocs/downloads/formblaetter/v2020/formblatt_5.pdf;jsessionid=7582F15E04918CA9B166E91302D8F89B.live722?__blob=publicationFile&v=1, which has to be checked and signed by the member of staff appointed to deal with BAföG matters, Dr. Vivian Gramley mailto:v.gramley@uni-bielefeld.de. Please see her staff list page for details of information you should provide when making an appointment to sign the form.

Detailed information from the BAföG office (in German) can be accessed here: https://www.studierendenwerk-bielefeld.de/bafoeg/bafoeg-amt-kontakt-und-beratungszeiten.html

Language Proficiency Test (LPT) is the module exam you take to complete the Basic Module One (BM1), the language practice module, which consists of Argumentation, Communication, and Critical Reading; Grammar & Usage; Writing; Research and Presentation Skills. It can be taken at any point, provided you have participated in and completed these BM1 seminars. 

• You do NOT have to take the test as soon as you have finished BM1.
• If you feel you need to work at your language skills more before taking the LPT, please do that. 
• ALL the BM1 seminars (ACCR, Grammar & Usage, Writing and RPS) have to have been completed before you take the LPT. 
• If you take one or more of these seminars in the same semester that you take the LPT, but your Studienleistung has not yet been entered, you can still take the LPT.

The LPT has two components, which are technically two separate exams: 

1. the 60-minute written paper (Grammar & Usage plus a mediation task consisting of an English summary of a German text), and 
2. an interview (oral presentation of an argument or question, with a followup conversation with two examiners, taking in total around eight or nine minutes). 

The written and interview components do not have to be taken on or around the same date or even in the same semester. 

• If you fail one component, you do not have to repeat both exams. Both components are offered twice each semester.
• You can take part in either the first or the second LPT in any given semester.
• You do not have to have taken part in the first one to participate in the second one.
• The LPT can be taken as often as you like, but there is little point in retaking it to improve marks, as the improvement has to be considerable for it to influence your overall grade for your BA. 

The Grammar & Usage part of the written paper gives candidates the opportunity to show they have the kind of lexico-grammatical control that can be expected of an advanced user of English as a second language. There are no theoretical questions that require "rules" to be stated or metalinguistic knowledge to be displayed. The mediation task, a summary in English of a short text in German, is assessed via a set of descriptors focusing on 

1. the accuracy and appropriateness of the language used,
2. selection, condensation, and coherent organization of material from the original text, and 
3. the effectiveness of the summary in conveying the key points of the original. 

• The highest-scoring summaries are those that would enable someone who did not read German to understand the core content of the original article fully and effortlessly.

The LPT interviews are assessed via descriptors. These focus on 

1. the general impression the candidate makes in terms of assurance, resources and strategies when presenting and discussing their topic; 
2. on the content and discourse organization of their presentation and in the subsequent conversation (coherence, flexibility, variety and substance of arguments and ideas and ability to articulate them); 
3. the structure and clarity of the argumentation; 
4. the range and appropriateness of lexical resources; 
5. pronunciation, not only of individual sounds, but also with regard to phonetic reductions in ‘weak forms’ and unstressed syllables; correct word stress, absence of strong final devoicing, intonation and linking;
6. grammatical control in terms of appropriateness, variety of structures, effectiveness, repairs and accuracy

Information on the regulations applying to your B.A. studies as a whole, the regulations and the modules you have to complete for your particular variant of the B.A., and advice and information on organizing module papers or exams with respect to BM2, BM3, and PM4.

Information on the Fächerspezifische Bestimmungen (FsB)

FsB are the regulations which apply to your B.A. studies. For the FsB for the B.A. programmes from10.01.2017, plus further information, please follow this link: B.A. Anglistik, 2017 https://ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de/sinfo/publ/bachelor/anglistik?&lang=de

Students who began their degrees before 2017 are advised to consult the academic advisor or contact the Prüfungsamt if they think these regulations deviate from the ones they have been following.

• An overview of the structure, main focus, and regulations for each course of study in the B.A. program can be found here: https://ekvv.uni-bielefeld.de/sinfo/publ/bachelor/anglistik.
• For the FsB for the B.A. from WS 2011/2012, plus further information, please follow this link: B.A. Anglistik, 2011.
• The FsB of February 2005 apply to students who took up their B.A. studies in Anglistik in the winter semester 2004/2005 or later. The FsB of July 2003 apply to students who took up their B.A. studies in Anglistik at Bielefeld University before (or in) the summer semester 2004. If such students wish to change to one of the newer FsBs, they are advised to consult the academic advisor or contact the Prüfungsamt.

Advice on how to organize your module exams, in particular BM2, BM3 and PM4.

Before students attempt the module papers in the Profilphase or the Vertiefungsphase, they are strongly advised to have completed and passed the module paperin BM 2.

• This means that you should not write your profile-module paper in PM 2 or PM 3 before you have passed the module paper in BM 2. You should also have completed and passed BM3 before you take History of the English Language in PM4. 

In order to help you assess and improve your academic writing skills, you will be asked to show your BM 2 module paper to the person who will read your profile-module paper (that is, your supervisor. (A similar regulation obtains for the Bachelor thesis, see its module description.)

The Oral Exam in PM 4

As set down in the module description, students will be examined on The History of the English Language and two more lectures of their choice. The complete material from all three lectures is relevant for the exam. All three parts of the exam must be passed; they are weighted equally to calculate the module grade. 

• Students register for the exam by sending an email to the module coordinator, Dr. Angela Stock, at this address: mailto:Registration_Ang_PM4@uni-bielefeld.de

In their registration email, they should state 

• the three lectures in which they want to be examined and 
• in which semester(s) they attended each lecture.

As a rule, students will be examined by the person who gave the lecture they attended. 

• Students must have registered for the upcoming exam at least four weeks in advance! 

Students will then be allotted a certain day and time for their exam. 

• This time slot is binding and can only be changed under extreme circumstances, like medical emergencies. 

As a rule, the main exam week of each semester is the week after teaching ends. 

• In addition, one Saturday per semester will be fixed as the second exam date; as a rule, this will be a Saturday in the fifth or sixth week of the semester. (The exact date will be announced each semester via newsletter.)

Plagiarism is using someone else's intellectual property and pretending it is your own; it is regarded as an extremely serious offence in any academic community. While many students worry about accidentally committing plagiarism, very few actually do it. 

• For examples of what constitutes plagiarism and what does not, please see the “Plagiarism” section on the Using English for Academic Purposes website http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm (link used with kind permission of Andy Gillett).

For guidelines on how to cite and reference sources accurately and correctly in your papers, presentations, and theses in the various sub-disciplines of Anglistik, see “Academic Writing[MM1] .”

Unethical practices that constitute plagiarism include 

• copying and pasting from internet sources or copying passages from books and 
• using them in an academic paper without citing the source. 

It is equally unethical to hand in a paper bought from a website or that someone was paid to write, or to present work that a friend or relative has written as if it were one’s own. 

It is also intellectual theft to use parts of other writers’ texts or their ideas without citing the source. 

Deliberate plagiarism is very rare but it is easily spotted and it is easy to trace the real source of the material. In Anglistik Bielefeld, the academic community of students, teachers, and researchers condemns deliberate plagiarism as a practice that undermines us all as scholars, and appropriate action is taken if it occurs. 

Since this can have very serious consequences, we would like to invite you

to carefully read the above-linked page about instances of plagiarism and
to take extra care as you incorporate others’ ideas and words in your own work.

 [MM1]Once the page is created and the link is ready, please link this to Links and Downloads > Academic Writing.