ELC History Lecture Course (continued from Page 1)
ELC Alumni Recounts Experience
Studying in MSU
By Marwan Al-Khalidy
ELC Instructor Elizabeth Webster gives a lecture in Wells Hall
recitation where here are typically about 15 students
per section. The recitation instructor collects homework, answers questions, leads review activities, facilitates class discussions, and administers quizzes
and tests over the material presented in lecture. The
lecturer and recitation instructors meet regularly to
go over course materials, plan upcoming lessons,
and stay in touch about student performance.
The overall theme of the course is “U.S. History and
Society.” We chose this theme for a number of reasons: 1) Most undergraduates are required to take a
history course, even if history is not their major or one
of their interests! This fact often surprises students.
2) Students should be able to learn something USING their English. Therefore, we picked a topic that
they wouldn’t already know a lot about in their native
languages. 3) The history topics we include help
international students understand current American
culture, society, and news.
Each semester, we cover a range of social, cultural,
and economic topics. In both fall and spring semesters, we begin with the American Revolution, basic
U.S. civics, and our founding documents (especially the Bill of Rights). In the fall, we teach additional
units on the Progressive Era (urbanization, immigration, and women’s rights at the turn of the 20th century), the Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. In spring, our units include Post-WWII America
(consumerism & the Baby Boom), the Cold War, and
the Civil Rights Movement. No matter the topic, we
always find that something in the news connects directly to the history we are studying.
So what academic benefits have we seen for our students in this course?
093 Content requires a lot of personal responsibility.
Students must be more independent and more organized than in their smaller ESL courses because their
face time with each instructor is more limited.
This class also provides extensive practice in notetaking, a skill that must be developed over time. Students are in lecture for an hour twice a week. Structured note guides are provided online ahead of time.
Students print and review them before class, predict
what they might hear, look up new vocabulary, etc.
Then during lecture, they fill in the notes. If students
are not able to catch everything during lecture, they
have many opportunities to find the information they
missed. PowerPoints are posted online each lecture.
Students can also ask questions during recitation the
following day.
There is a lot of vocabulary to learn in 093 Content.
Some words are specific to the history topics being
studied (e.g., veto, legislation, segregation, McCarthyism). There is also a lot of academic vocabulary
which students will encounter in a wider variety of
contexts (e.g., approve, consume, enforcement, authorize). We also focus on using prefixes and suffixes
to guess at the meanings of new words (demo-, anti, -ism, etc.). Students will need a range of vocabulary acquisition skills when they enter their academic
courses. This course gives them a taste of the kind of
vocabulary they will encounter and gives them strategies on how to learn them.
Over the years, student reaction to the course has
generally been quite positive. Those who do the
work consistently and conscientiously report huge
gains in their note-taking ability, vocabulary range,
and confidence to succeed at MSU. However, we do
get some pushback each semester. The class is not
one that students can slide through with minimal effort. Those who try to “game” the course by skipping
lecture, copying notes from friends, begging hints
about exams from classmates, etc., often perform
very poorly. For this reason, the teaching faculty
works very hard at the beginning of each semester
to help students understand the purpose and benefits of this course. Those who buy into our plan see
great results in their English and academic learning!
My journey with Michigan State University started in
the beginning of January 2011, when I got a scholarship to study Law from the Iraqi Government. For
me it was a dream to go overseas as a graduate student. The United States was the peak of that dream.
When people talk about studying abroad, no doubt
that there is no country in the world promotes the
academic approaches as the USA. I had never been
out of my country, and I wondered how my life was
going to be in the United States. As a foreigner who
doesn’t speak English very well, I had to take English
language lessons in the English Language Center at
MSU. The first person I met at MSU was the secretary
of the English Language Center who left a great first
impression of the people I am going to deal with. I
spent almost a year studying English language in that
solid program, then a year and a half in the College
of Law. The well prepared and organized instructors
and professors enriched my language, knowledge,
and experience.
The three semesters in the English Language Center
was not just learning English; it was preparation for
the academic study life and to adapt to the American
environment. In the ELC, we were not only studying
English; rather it went beyond that. We were learning
the American culture,