All courses offered under ESL are designed for the student whose native tongue is not English. Review of basic material is very strongly emphasized. Students continue to learn good basic sentence writing, which includes spelling, punctuation and grammar. Students are also introduced to narrative, descriptive and process paragraph writing, and learn to write personal and business letters.
Students learn and review low-intermediate level English reading skills.
These include previewing, skimming, scanning, identifying the main idea, understanding simple charts and graphs, and basic dictionary skills. Students learn new vocabulary and practice figuring out new words from the context of the surrounding sentence. Students learn to understand and practice following directions spoken at normal speeds on topics and functions related to everyday communication in the academic and employment world. Listening practice discriminates between statements of fact and opinion, questions and commands. Speaking practice will produce short answers and simple sentences expressing fact and personal opinion.