About the course:
Students in the IEP study English twenty hours a week, taking reading, writing, speaking, grammar, and academic skills classes. Students are placed in courses according to their level, which is determined by a placement test.
Oral Communication
Students develop both listening and speaking skills. The listening component helps students improve their ability to understand spoken English in informal conversation as well as in formal academic lectures. The speaking component helps students improve pronunciation, fluency, and accuracy. The goal is to make students more competent in and confident about communicating in English.
Reading
Students develop skills to read more efficiently and practice strategies to increase vocabulary. The skills taught are applied to both pleasure reading and academic texts. Students practice skimming and scanning, previewing, using headings, and identifying topics for a variety of texts. Learning to recognize key words and transitions, distinguish main ideas and details, and draw inferences and conclusions support both reading and writing development.
Writing
Students develop general and academic writing skills, including the ability to express ideas clearly and grammatically, choose appropriate vocabulary, and edit their own work. Both personal and academic writing assignments provide practice in writing, revising work for content and form, and producing coherent paragraphs and essays using a variety of modes of organization. Students also learn to search for outside source materials and integrate such information with their own ideas for a short research paper.
Grammar
Students build on their knowledge of English grammar for both formal and informal usage. Class time is devoted to communicative and content-based activities that provide practice with specific grammatical structures and features of English. Students improve both their accuracy and fluency in producing and understanding written and spoken English.
Academic Skills
This class is designed to simulate a credit-bearing course in a U.S. university. It allows students to practice the skills they will need to succeed in their future coursework and become more confident and comfortable with the environment and requirements of a typical UW-Madison course. This course requires students to apply their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills to high-level academic activities and situations. Throughout the semester, students watch segments of university lectures on video and have guest lecturers visit their class. Students also attend several actual university lectures at UW-Madison.
Elective Courses
During the summer session and fall semester, students can also choose from special elective classes, including courses on…
- TOEFL and IELTS test skills
- Short stories
- Drama and film
- Music
- Ethics and current affairs