Overview
Barbara T. Britt-Hysell, Coordinator
John Bartle (German and Russian Languages and Literatures)
English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) is a program that provides a variety of instructional services to a broad range of students for whom American English is not their first or native language. The program critically engages the cultural traditions and perspectives that challenge a student’s analytic discernment while discovering and explaining their ideas and solving problems using higher level thinking and writing skills. We aim to learn and benefit from how culture and language affect learning, speaking, listening, and reading as well as the writing process and the evaluation of academic discourse in the college classroom. Activities include a weekly radio show and a Spectator column called “From Where I Sit” as well as on-going tutorials, weekly conversation tables, pronunciation workshops, an interactive website, and two writing intensive courses.
The courses facilitate ESOL students to sharpen their writing skills for college-level work in all academic disciplines. Both courses focus on teaching students how to organize standard academic essays and how to form clear, coherent arguments at the college level. The ESOL-102 is open to all students. Both provide regular academic credit toward graduation requirements and satisfy the College-wide requirements of writing-intensive courses.