English as a Second Language
Do you sometimes wonder if the vocabulary your textbook is teaching is really what your ESL students need to learn? Well, you're not alone. Many teachers long to have a more precise and effective way of helping their students learn English vocabulary, and in this course, I'll show you how.
Over the next six weeks, you'll discover what the different types of vocabulary are, as well as how to accurately assess what your students already know and what they need to learn. You'll also explore the most powerful way of teaching vocabulary as you teach ESL: across the four strands. These four strands include meaning-focused input (listening and reading), meaning-focused output (speaking and writing), language-focused (deliberate) learning, and fluency development.
You may be surprised to learn that you don't need to devote class time to all the types of vocabulary. Instead, you're better off teaching your students learning strategies with certain categories, and you'll get to fully delve into what these are too.
In addition, you'll find ways to evaluate how successful your vocabulary activities are, see how to teach vocabulary with content-based instruction, and explore how to monitor your students' learning. By the end of this course, you'll understand what makes a well-balanced vocabulary course and how to design one of your own!
In this course, you'll come to see English grammar as a three-dimensional process that's useful in bringing coherence, cohesion, and texture to writing and speech. We'll begin by considering seven definitions of grammar that we'll draw on throughout the course. We'll also discuss the differences between patterns and rules, and why second-language learners benefit from our instruction on both.
You'll learn why students need to understand the three dimensions of grammar—form, meaning, and use—and how seeing grammar as a dynamic and changing system helps students overcome many of their grammar challenges. You'll also see why teaching grammar in a way that makes it personally meaningful to your students brings the best results.
And since teaching isn't just about presenting lessons, we'll also go over the importance of "reading" your students—observing them to try to figure out what learning process they're using.
Would you like to learn how to write more effectively? Many ESL learners have excellent training and skills in their native languages but find their academic or career progress slowed by the challenges of writing in English. This course will take you through each step of the writing process, showing you how to generate, focus, and develop your ideas. A thorough grammar review will also help you refine and perfect your writing. By the end of this course, you will be able to produce writing that is clear, logical, cohesive, and free of grammatical and punctuation errors.