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ESL 110/510 is a single course, serving two groups of students. Undergraduates register under ESL 110; graduates register under ESL 510. To enroll, undergraduates and graduates must be either required or recommended to take the course on the basis of results from their Illinois ESL Placement Test (EPT) Oral Interview. If you are neither required nor recommended to take the course, please read the information pertaining to ESL 110/510 on this page.
The course is designed to improve the international student's ability to speak and understand educated English at normal conversational speed and to give the student the ability to continue improving pronunciation skills after the course is finished through training in self-monitoring and self-teaching.
The course begins with an assessment of each student's personal needs. Each student makes a recording of his or her voice which the instructor will study to determine which areas of pronunciation are the most important for the student to work on during the semester. Progress in these individualized areas of focus is necessary in order to pass the course.
The specific objectives of in-class and out-of-class work are to enhance the learner's skill in perception (listening), production (articulation), and prediction (before speaking, judging which vowel, consonant, stress position or intonation pattern is appropriate for a word, phrase or sentence). Students learn to use standard English orthography to predict vowels, consonants, and stress in novel words and phrases so that they can be independent learners after the class concludes.
Class time is focused on these areas of pronunciation:
Out-of-class time is focused on
The class website is a key player in instruction, providing not only a listing of daily assignments but also access to materials used for those assignments -- printed exercises, audio recordings, and sample quizzes.
Many opportunities are available to receive help with specific pronunciation problems. For each difficult area, special materials are made available to the student in print and on the audio server to help the student along. In addition, scheduled office visits throughout the semester with the instructor allow for one-on-one focused work. Other office hours area also made available. Finally, students may be given an opportunity to receive intensive tutoring on a challenging area before the semester ends.
Credit: Semester Hours 0 (for undergraduates and graduates). Students who are required to take ESL 110/510 should be aware of this fact: For purposes of visa status, assistantships, loans, etc. this course is recognized university-wide and by INS as equivalent to 4 hours of work regardless of the 0 credit; that is, it counts as 4 hours in your total course load. Students and others who are not required to take ESL 110/510 should check with their departmental advisors for information on how their departments view non-required ESL courses.