Students who enroll for summer school in the Language Institute For Excellence (LIFE) at Shaw University use a superior quality Information Technology to facilitate learning in a six-week Intensive English Program. These students have direct access not only to all libraries on campus but also to those who have agreed to collaborate with Shaw University. North Carolina State University Library is an example - with the largest collections statewide. In addition to the Humanities and the Education Departments' computer labs, the Shaw Science Building has three major computer labs with the latest IT software and hardware components to cater to all learners' needs. All of the labs are user-friendly and ergonomically sound.
Under the auspices of the Department of Humanities, LIFE's summer school is primarily an English as a Second Language (ESL) program in which all four (major) language skills are fully integrated. We offer content-based, student-centered, and customized courses to meet the specific ESL needs of our students. Prior to beginning or upon starting the summer session, students are divided into learning units based on their levels of proficiency. But these units share the same themes including but not limited to education, cultures, sports, the environment, business, and politics. The reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities, centered on those themes, give students ample opportunities to express diversity while they also learn about the US and the rest of the world to satisfy their academic and professional interests.
Summer 2007: A Four-Week ESL Program
The program helps students achieve high proficiency through a curriculum that promotes the acquisition of integrated skills in listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Students at all levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced) are exposed to the teaching/learning methods and approaches utilized in American Colleges and Universities. The courses help students develop and use American English accurately and appropriately in both academic and social contexts. Classes consist of lectures, seminars, small group discussions, individual work as well as group projects. Web-based threaded discussions are also used to supplement on-site learning. Listening and speaking activities are done in the classrooms and in the computer labs. Students are assigned reading and writing to do both in class and outside of class. Books are required and some are recommended for each class, but instructors may also provide information from other sources such as newspapers, journals, magazines, novels, movies, radio stations, television networks, and the Internet.
Levels of Proficiency
Students are placed at one of the following three levels of proficiency, based on performance in an English Proficiency Test they take prior to registration or the first day of the program.
Level 1 (beginning): Students at this level have only basic knowledge and very limited English proficiency. They need a great amount of exposure to all aspects of the language so that they may build a solid foundation in terms of vocabulary and familiarity with key structural rules.
Level 2 (intermediate): This level makes no distinction between low and high intermediate. Students have more than basic knowledge, but they need to practice extensively and develop confidence in the language productive skills (speaking and writing). They also need to expand their vocabulary and improve on their language competence so that they may be able to summarize authentic texts, analyze written discourse, and write five-paragraph essays with emphasis on organization, unity, coherence, and error-free sentence skills.
Level 3 (advanced): This level combines students traditionally called 'advanced' and 'high advanced' learners. These students have reasonable command of the English language, but they need to extend their competence to more challenging areas so that they may perform with great ease academically and professionally across English varieties. Upon completing the program, such students are fully prepared for college research, reading and writing across the curriculum.
Listening Classes
ESL 110 - Listening Comprehension Level 1 (Beginning)
This class focuses on acquiring basic listening strategies that help understand the main features of speech, with emphasis on reductions in American spoken discourse. It also trains students to recognize and pronounce the vowel and consonant sounds of English.
ESL 120 - Listening Comprehension Level 2 (Intermediate)
In this intermediate listening comprehension class, students are exposed to both formal and informal types of discourse. They develop greater familiarity with the sounds system of English in authentic listening materials that include speech reductions. They build upon their listening skills from ESL 110, and they start to understand the gist of spoken texts in specific contexts.
ESL 130 - Listening Comprehension Level 3 (Advanced)
Students in this class utilize their knowledge of sounds system of English and their familiarity with speech reductions to analyze and fully comprehend authentic listening materials in casual and formal situations that may range from small talks to academic speeches and lectures. They also learn to make reasonable inferences on the basis of their knowledge of the subject matter, the participants, the context, and the overall structure of language in spoken discourse. They develop clear understanding of supra-segmental features, such as intonation and stress, and can even make reasonable assumptions regarding cultural overtones.
Speaking Classes
ESL 112 - Speaking Level 1 (Beginning)
This class puts great emphasis on activities that facilitate acquisition of skills required for participating effectively in survival dialogues, casual conversations, and face-to-face class discussions. They learn a wide range of functions that include but are not limited to making requests, giving instructions, describing, narrating, and negotiating.
ESL 122 - Speaking Level 2 (Intermediate)
The focus in this class is on the acquisition of oral presentation skills based on an audience-centered approach. Students learn more about and practice turn taking, interrupting, and reporting. They also learn to use appropriate and fluent language while they do pair work and small group discussions.
ESL 132 - Speaking Level 3 (Advanced)
The advanced speaking class focuses on developing accuracy, fluency and effective discussion skills in various contexts, including classroom situations. Students engage in activities that demand data gathering and information sharing on puzzles or complex problems that they cannot solve individually. These activities are centered on problem-solving tasks. They include but are not limited to role play exercises (e.g., simulating court cases), negotiating, deliberating, finishing stories, interviewing, discussing cultural differences and similarities, and finishing stories.
Grammar Classes
ESL 113 - Grammar Level 1 (Beginning)
In the beginning level 1 grammar class, students learn basic structural rules of the English language. They use games and communicative activities to better internalize the rules.
ESL 123 - Grammar Level 2 (Intermediate)
In this class, emphasis is placed on remedial work, avoiding the so-called common errors in English, and on the mastery of the basic rules they learned in ESL 113. In addition, the class covers more complex grammatical structures of English. Students at this level also learn through a communicative approach.
ESL 133 - Grammar Level 3 (Advanced)
At this level, students achieve mastery of complex grammatical structures covered in ESL 123. They also work their ways through the intricacies of English syntax so that they may be able to speak and write at various levels of formality for a wide range of purposes. They learn to discriminate the grammar of casual speech from that of forma discourse in academic environments and other formal contexts.
Reading Classes
ESL 111 - Reading Level 1 (Beginning)
The focus in ESL 111 is on developmental reading. Students learn various reading techniques and vocabulary development strategies.
ESL 121 - Reading Level 2 (Intermediate)
This class reinforces the reading techniques and strategies students acquired in ESL 111. It walks them through the various steps of the process of active reading. They continue to expand their vocabulary while they learn more advanced strategies to increase their reading speed and comprehension.
ESL 131 - Reading Level 3 (Advanced)
The focus in the 131 reading class is on the mastery of academic reading techniques and strategies. Students learn to read extensively at a very fast pace. They also develop critical thinking and discourse analysis skills. This class prepares students for both academic and professional readings.
Writing Classes
ESL 114 - Writing Level 1 (Beginning)
The class puts a special stress on language mechanics, organization, coherence, and development of ideas in paragraph writing. Students are introduced to revising, editing, and proofreading.
ESL 134 - Writing Level 2 (Intermediate)
This is a developmental writing class; it focuses on essay writing. Students learn how to summarize an article, paraphrase writers' ideas, and integrate citations in their own writing. They also learn to document outside sources from which they borrow ideas or direct quotations. In addition to journals, other genres, such as report, process, narrative and persuasion, are introduced. Great emphasis is put on organization, unity, clarity, coherence, support, and error-free sentence skills with a lot of rewriting, editing, and proofreading.
Pronunciation Class: Lab Work
ESL 090 - Pronunciation: Lab Tutorial
This is a self-study lab service: a Computer-Assisted Language Learning opportunity for ESL students at all levels of proficiency. Emphasis is on fine-tuning the listening skills acquired in ESL 110, 120, and 130, while students continue to practice understanding and producing speech reductions, unstressed syllables, stress patterns and the right intonation in the right contexts.
Summer 2007 Class Schedule
This summer, there will be one unit on a Monday-through-Friday schedule.
Time |
Class |
Room |
Instructor |
8:00am - 8:50am |
ESL 131
Reading
|
|
Brown, Anthony |
9:00am - 9:50am |
ESL 134
Writing
|
|
Brown, Anthony |
10:00am - 10:50am |
ESL 132
Speaking
|
|
Blair, Lisa |
11:00am - 11:50am |
ESL 130
Listening |
|
Blair, Lisa |
Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
1:00pm - 1:50pm |
ESL 133
Grammar |
|
Hervie, Nakotey |
2:00pm - 2:50pm |
ESL 090
Lab
|
|
Hervie, Nakotey |
For More Information Contact:
Dr. Elaine yarborough, Director
International Programs
Telephone Number: 919-546-8375
eyarborough@shawu.edu
Or
Dr. Desire Baloubi, Associate Professor
Department of Humanities
Telephone Number: 919-546-8307
dbaloubi@shawu.edu
Or
Dr. Frederick Jones, Chair
Department of Humanities
Telephone Number: 919-546-8317
fjones@shawu.edu
