Discussions of contemporary issues are used to develop skills such as listening for main ideas, identifying details and points of view, predicting, and expressing opinions. The course prepares students to take notes on college lectures, participate in class discussions, and to participate in the social activities of college life. Vocabulary and grammatical structures are presented contextually, and students practice these structures in discussions designed for pair or group interaction and in writing exercises. The course provides the comprehension skills necessary for productive academic reading. Using texts from essays in newspapers and magazines as well as selections from academic fields, the students become aware of reading strategies for detailed analysis.
Students learn to make valid inferences and to interpret tone and figurative usage.
The course prepares students to read texts written on a college level. Writing practice enabling advanced students to produce coherent, organized paragraphs. Techniques covered include freewriting, editing, revision, and developing final drafts on a variety of formal topics. Students practice using terminology and grammatical structures appropriate to the writing expected in college classes.