ESL Credit Courses

New Students or students entering West Virginia University from the IEP may be required or may choose to take one or more ESL courses for university credit. These courses are taught by IEP faculty and coordinated by the Director of Academic Programs Stacy S. Fint

ESL 140: ESL Academic Reading & Writing

ESL 240: ESL Research and Writing

ESL 250: ESL Speaking & Listening

ESL 350: ITA Fluency

Speak Test (Institutional Test of Spoken English, TSE)

The Speak Test is administered in the CALL Lab to all incoming international Teaching Assistants who are required by West Virginia law to demonstrate their oral English language proficiency by achieving a score of 50 or more on the test. ITAs sign up for the test at the beginning or end of each semester with permission from the departments in which they hope to work as Teaching or Research Assistants. Students who score 50 or above are cleared for any assignment their department offers them. However, students who score lower than 50 are required to take an ITA Fluency course designed to improve pronunciation and overall comprehensibility. International students with speak scores between 45 and 50 should sign up for ESL350. Students with speak scores below 45 should sign up for ESL 250. More information about the SPEAK Test can be obtained from Karen Allen at kallen@mail.wvu.edu

ESL 140: ESL Academic Reading/Writing

This course for undergraduate and graduate international students develops the skills necessary to improve academic reading skills and to write well-organized and self-edited essays in a variety of rhetorical modes. Students will improve their reading speed and comprehension, write a well-developed essay, utilize self-editing strategies, develop their academic vocabulary, and be familiar with a variety of rhetorical modes. The course is required for all undergraduate international students whose TOEFL score is between 500 and 525, but is open to any international students who seek additional study in reading and writing. This course is designed to help them remedy gaps in their knowledge of English in order to better prepare them for successful study in their major.

ESL 240: ESL Research and Writing

This course provides undergraduate and graduate international students with the skills, strategies, and procedures necessary for researching a topic and writing a well-organized and logical research paper. Students will learn appropriate methods of research, engage in a variety of pre-writing activities to prepare for writing a research paper, and write a well-organized and logical 8-10 page research paper. The course is required for all undergraduate and graduate international students with TOEFL scores between 526 and 550 and open to others who wish to improve their ability to write a research paper. International students may come from backgrounds in which they have never written a research paper previously or in which the style and format is different from that commonly accepted in higher education in the United States. International students typically have problems in understanding the methods of research, the organization of the research paper, and ways to avoid plagiarism. The ESL Research and Writing course is designed to remedy these problems before students are faced with them in their academic courses.

ESL 150: ESL Speaking/Listening

This course for undergraduate and graduate international students provides guidance and practice in general and academic speaking and listening skills and improves oral comprehensibility through pronunciation activities. Students will improve their speaking and listening skills so that they may successfully engage in classroom discourse, understand lectures, and gain confidence in their ability to communicate with people in a variety of situations. Students will demonstrate their speaking skills in a variety of classroom situations and through an exit interview with the professor. Undergraduate and graduate international students at the beginning of their academic study often experience difficulty in communicating with their peers and their professors and in understanding academic lectures because they have not previously been exposed to authentic spoken English. This course provides them with the skills and practice they need to adapt to their new environment and participate successfully in the academic community.

ESL 199: ITA Fluency

Designed for graduate students wishing to become International Teaching Assistants (ITAs), this course focuses on the characteristics of effective oral communication in English in order to improve SPEAK test scores and comprehensibility in the classroom. Students will improve their speaking skills to reach 50 on the SPEAK test and demonstrate their greater fluency and comprehensibility in the classroom through academic speaking tasks and presentations.