Link to course grades

Link to Final Project: Magazine Digest: Personality Profiles

ESOL 840 Syllabus for Spring 2007

Teacher: Daniel O'Connell   Course: ESOL840   English For Speakers of Other Languages IV   Section: AA Room: 8-8309 Time:   8:10-9:50 MWF 8:10-9:25 TTH   Units: 6.0 ( non-transferable and not applicable to AA degree)   Office: 5113  Office Hours: 10:00-11:00   M,W,F, 9:30-11:00 TTh or by appt. E-Mail:   oconnelld@smccd.net   Telephone: (510) 378-7301 ext. 9179 to leave message Website : www.smccd.net/accounts/oconnelld/

 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.)

Altman, Caro, Merge-Egan, Roberts.   Sentence Combining Workbook

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

Two 80-page blank steno notebooks

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

Recommended dictionaries (not required):

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.

  Grades: Grading will be: A (89.5-100%), B (79.5-89.5%), C (69.5-79.49), or D (below 69.5%), which is not passing, based on in-class work, quizzes, writing assignments, and other graded assignments such as homework.    20% of the final grade will be based on the in-class final. 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.   It may have distracting grammar but not so severe as to interfere with content.

Grades for all coursework will be provided online at the instructor's website-- www.smccd.net/accounts/oconnelld/ . Students will have access to their grades as they develop.   Please use this website to keep track of your progress.  

Students are expected to take all tests and hand in all the homework for the class.   Contacting the teacher about missing class work is each student's responsibility.   Please contact me in class, through e-mail, or call a classmate if you miss something so that a makeup date can be arranged.   Missing class work without notifying the teacher will result in a zero grade for the assignment.

The last day to drop semester length classes without record is February 9th, and the last day to withdraw from semester length classes is April 26th.

No late papers will be accepted after the essays have been graded and returned to students. 

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 And Plagiarism:  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.

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 May 16, and Friday, May 18.

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 Mosaic 2 books to organize the semester.  We will work through 8 chapters of the 10 in the book.   In addition to the writing book, we will start many classes    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.

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.

Class Schedule:   ENGL 840: AA      Spring     2007                                                                 

   (This schedule subject to change, attend class for updates)  

Final Examination Time: Friday 5/25 8:10-10:40

6/6/06- Final grades available on WebSMART