Revised 12/2023

ESL 33 - Oral Communication I (5 CR.)

Course Description

Helps students practice and improve listening and speaking skills as needed for functioning successfully in academic, professional, and personal settings. Assesses students' oral skills and includes, as needed, practice with pronunciation, rhythm, stress, and intonation. Provides exercises, practices, small and large group activities, and oral presentations to help students overcome problems in oral communication. Credits are not applicable toward graduation. Lecture 5 hours per week.

General Course Purpose

To give intermediate or advanced ESL students intensive practice in listening and speaking in large and small group situations as well as practice in giving oral presentations. 

Course Prerequisites/Corequisites

An English placement test recommendation for ESL Level 3 or successful completion of ESL 24.

Corequisites: ESL 31 and ESL 32; corequisites are not required to be taken in the same semester

Course Objectives

Goal 1 - Students will be able to participate successfully in large and small group discussions

Objectives

Given a topic, students will be able to:

  • express ideas and opinions
  • make decisions
  • solve problems

Goal 2 - Students will be able to give formal and informal presentations

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • generate ideas
  • plan presentations
  • focus on a main idea
  • organize support
  • deliver ideas clearly with emphasis on comprehensible pronunciation, stress, rhythm, intonation, eye contact, etc.

Goal 3 - Students will be able to understand and follow class discussion, presentations, and instructions.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • give appropriate responses to oral instructions
  • convey different language functions such as agreeing, disagreeing, and asking for
  • clarifications

Goal 4 - Students will be able to understand fluent speech at a normal rate

Objectives

Students will recognize

  • pronunciation changes between stressed and unstressed syllables
  • changes in meaning based on stress

Goal 5 - Students will be able to understand academic lectures

Objectives

Students will be able to

  • recognize cues given in academic lectures
  • take notes on academic lectures
  • use the information in their lecture notes to respond to questions on a given topic

Major Topics to Be Included

  • Large and small group activities
    • emphasis on learning to interact and function in groups
  • Formal and informal presentations
    • emphasis on organization and content of presentations, such as role-playing activities
  • Practice in clear communication
    • emphasis on delivery of ideas (pronunciation, eye contact, comfort in delivery, etc.)
  • Listening Comprehension
    • emphasis on understanding and following class discussions, presentations, and instructions