Revised 12/2023

ESL 24 - Oral and Written Communications I (5 CR.)

Course Description

Provides practice in the sound, stress, intonation, structural patterns, grammar, vocabulary, and idioms of beginning-level English. Credits are not applicable toward graduation. Lecture 5 hours per week.

General Course Purpose

To give low-intermediate ESL students the opportunity to develop skills in understanding and producing correct English structures through oral and written communication. To provide practice listening to and understanding academic lectures 

Course Prerequisites/Corequisites

An English placement test recommendation for ESL Level 2. Corequisites: ESL 21 and ESL 22;

corequisites are not required to be taken in the same semester

Course Objectives

Goal 1 - Students will be able to produce sentences orally with clear and comprehensible pronunciation

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • improve use of stress at the word level
  • improve use of sentence stress
  • pause at word/phrase boundaries
  • improve use of vowel and consonant sounds
  • use grammatical patterns appropriately

Goal 2 - Students will be able to use intonation and stress patterns appropriately in context

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • improve use of intonation according to grammatical patterns
  • improve use of word and sentence stress

Goal 3 - Students will build accuracy in basic sentence structures

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • use appropriate verb form and tense
  • edit writing for agreement

Goal 4 – Students will be able to understand class discussion and academic presentations

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • identify main ideas and details of academic lectures
  • develop basic note-taking skills
  • organize notes
  • use information in their notes to respond to questions on a given topic

Major Topics to Be Included

  • Listening/Speaking
    • emphasis on listening and speaking skills in context of an American classroom
  • Large and small group activities
    • emphasis on learning to interact and function in groups, such as role-playing activities
  • Formal and informal presentations
    • emphasis on planning, organization, and content of presentations
  • Practice in clear communication
    • emphasis on delivery of ideas (pronunciation, eye contact, comfort in delivery)
  • Listening comprehension
    • emphasis on understanding and following class discussions and presentations
    • emphasis on understanding different communication styles
    • understanding idiomatic expressions
  • Writing/Grammar
    • emphasis on writing and grammar skills to include:
      • basic sentence structures
      • basic verb system
      • agreement
      • introduce determiners