Fall 2006

Course: ESOL 840: English for Non-Native Speakers IV

Section: AA        Room: PH 414     Time: MWF: 8:10-9:50; TTH 8:10-9:25 Units: 6 (non-transferable, not applicable to AA degree)
Teacher: Garry Nicol
Office: PH 414    Office Hours: MWF 10:00-11:00; TTh 9:30-11:00 or by appointment
Office Telephone: 738-4361 (message)
E-mail: nicol@smccd.net

Texts:       
Blass & Pike-Baky.  Mosaic ll, A Content-Based Writing Book (4th ed.)

Wegmann, Knezevic, and Bernstein.  Mosaic II--A Reading Skills Book (4th ed.)

Modules for English Speakers of Other Languages: Writing Lab

Rowlings, J. K.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Students of ESOL 840, Spr 2006: Summer Job

One 80-page blank steno notebooks

A floppy disk, Zip disk, or USB media for saving (USB best)

Recommended dictionaries (not required):

Diccionario Ingles (Houghton Mifflin 1972)
              The American Heritage English as a Second Language Dictionary

Catalogue Course Description: ESOL 840 ENGLISH FOR SPEAKERS OF OTHER LANGUAGES IV (6)
Nine lecture hours per week. Recommended: Satisfactory completion of ESOL 830 or both 831 and 832,or completion of ENGL 873 with a grade of C or better or appropriate skill level as indicated by ESL placement test and other measures as necessary.

This course is for advanced students who have studied the grammatical structures, reading skills, and elements of paragraph writing in ESOL 830, or 831 and 832. Emphasis is on thematic reading, discussion, and writing from paragraph to essays, supplemented by exercises in proofreading. (Units do not count toward the Associate Degree.)

Student Learning Outcomes:
ESOL 840 is a 4-skills class with instruction and practice in listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  Upon completion of ESOL 840, you will be able to

1. for listening, identify and understand new information in lectures on academic topics, especially when prepared with class activities.

2. for speaking, make yourself understood in discussion with attentive listeners about academic topics, sometimes adding details or rephrasing to increase understanding.

3. for reading, apply reading strategies to unabridged academic texts and demonstrate critical thinking in summaries and comprehension questions

4. for writing, demonstrate an ability to make a point supported by comprehensible, organized, developed text.

Placement: Advisory placement by LOEP placement test (scale score 141-183, raw score 45-56) or completion of ESOL 830 with C or better or completion of both evening ESOL 831 and ESOL 832.

Special Needs: We welcome students who need special help because of physical or learning problems.  To set up help, contact the DSPS office at 738-4280.

Grades: Grading will be A, B, C, or D (not passing) based 30% on attendance, in-class work and other +/- graded assignments such as book reports, 50% on regular written essays, and 20% on the in-class writing final.
Here is how the letter grades are calculated.  Please not that although the program reports grades as plus (+) and minus (-), the college records often can only record the simple letter grade without the plus or minus in your permanent record.

As a major writing course, it is very important to turn your essays in on time with your final draft on top of your two earlier drafts.  In general, for this level the department writing standard for a B grade is "Organization but some grammar errors."  To earn an A grade, your work must show "Fluency, control in organization, few grammar errors."  This is what we aim for in this class.

No late papers will be accepted after the essays have been graded and returned to students.  The grade for missing papers is zero; however, I will drop the lowest grade for each essay, journal/book report, and quiz.  Extra credit will be assigned one point for each Writing and Reading Lab workshop you attend and give me a receipt for.

Support Services: It is highly advised to use the tutors at the Writing and Reading Lab as you work on your papers.  We also have ESL specialists in The Learning Center that can help you with ESL grammar.  If you have grammar habits that you cannot break, go the TLC and sign up for a 655 class, even after end of registration.

Discipline:  Behavior is not a problem in this class.  My expectations are that you come to class every day and on time.  Please don't talk when someone else has the floor, since the sound echoes and you make hearing impossible for your classmates.  In college essays we are interested in your ideas.  You must never copy some other person's ideas --out of a book or the Internet, for example-- and present them as if the ideas were yours.  If you do this in this class you will get no credit for your essay.  If you do it in other college classes you can be expelled from school.  Please limit your eating to foods so small and quiet that no one can notice and your drinking to water that will not stain the carpet

In-Class Writing Final Exam: Instead of the day scheduled in the time schedule, your final exam will be given early in the last week of regular classes.
This semester the exam will be Wednesday Dec 6, and our last day to meet is Friday December 8.

Attendance: Coming to class every day and on time is necessary for this class.  If you miss more than 10 classes you can be dropped from the class list.  Two late arrivals are counted as an absence.  Our time together is short and valuable.  Let's make the most of it!


Course Description: This class is the fourth in our ESL sequence of classes.  You will be working on all of the English skills: reading, writing, speaking, and grammar.  We have organized your classes this way to increase your learning by taking the grammar and vocabulary you use in one skill, such as reading, and reusing the same vocabulary and grammar in other skill areas, such as speaking or writing.
         One difference between ESOL 830 and ESOL 840 is that instead of a grammar book we will use a writing book.  This reflects the increasing importance of the skill of writing as you get closer to the native-speaker English classes required of college graduates in California.
         Reading is an important part of this class.  In addition to the reading exercises and tests, we will read a Harry Potter book together and you will also read three English books put on reserve in the library.  These books are on two-week reserve.  You need to get a library card and you must be sure to return the books on time or you will be fined.  If you lose a book you must buy a replacement for the library.
In addition, I am asking each of you to scan through magazines, newspapers, or quality Internet sites to find personality profiles to read and do regular reports on. 
         I am going to use the Blass and Pike-Baky book as the organizing book.  We will work through 8 chapters of the 10 in the book.  The first chapters are about the personal, such as memories.  The middle chapters are about people and places close to you.  The last chapters are about more abstract topics, such as the environment. 
         In addition to the Blass and Pike-Baky book, we will start each class with 10 minutes of journal writing to improve your fast writing and fluency.  The big project for this class will be to put out an edition of an interview “people” magazine, something like the Summer Job magazine that ESOL 840 published in spring of 2006.
         To make our magazine, we must learn to use Microsoft Word on the Macintosh and Windows computers in The Learning Center.  The Macintoshes are easy to learn and fun to use, but some students prefer Windows.   You will also use these computers to type up your second and final drafts of essays for this class.  One reason for using the computers in The Learning Center is that in the TLC it is easy to find ESL and composition tutors for extra help.