Advanced Academic Skills in the Low-Level ESL Class

Abstract

Many university-bound ESL students who have completed intensive English courses seem to lack the essential reading, writing, and study skills needed for successful academic work. Students supposedly ready to begin university work need to read with speed and comprehension, to write cogent essays and reports, to understand and take notes from lectures, and to employ effective study techniques. These skills are difficult for native speakers as well, and they take time to learn. By postponing their introduction until the high intermediate and advanced ESL levels, we give our students only a brief term or two of practice in both conceptually and technically difficult areas. Most of the so-called advanced skills and concepts involved in successful reading, writing, and studying can be adapted for use in the low-level ESL class, the assumption being that students unskilled in the linguistic aspects of the language can still conceptualize.