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English Language Programs
University of Pennsylvania
110 Fisher-Bennett Hall
3340 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6274 USA
Email: elp@sas.upenn.edu
Phone: 215-898-8681
Fax: 215-898-2684
Core Courses:
Elective Courses:
- Academic Reading and Writing
- Activating Grammar
- Active Listening
- Extending Grammar
- Focus on Listening
- Intermediate Reading and Discussion
- Financially Speaking
- Issues in Business
- Listening & Speaking in Business
- Pronunciation Practice
- Speaking in Action
- TOEFL Preparation
- Writing and Reading for Academic Purposes
- Writing Workshop
Intermediate Level 500 Core Course (all skills): This course moves you from learning language to using language in a wider context. Through assignments in and outside of class, you and your classmates grow more confident and effective when you use English anywhere in the world, starting with your community interactions in Philadelphia and on Penn's campus. You listen to short clips of movies and dialogues to build listening skills and clear pronunciation. You read and discuss short articles on personal and popular topics to increase comprehension, develop vocabulary-learning strategies, and improve your grammar. Teacher and peer feedback on journal and other writing assignments makes your writing more correct and more expressive. Short clips from films show conversational strategies for you to practice and then apply when making social contacts - for example, on campus in student clubs, or in the community doing volunteer work.
Intermediate Level 600 Core Course (all skills): This course helps you improve all your language skills: reading, listening, writing, speaking, and grammar. You improve your reading and listening while you learn more about current social issues in the United States and around the world. Your speaking and discussion skills grow as you examine the issues in relation to your own and your classmates' experiences in the US and your home countries. By participating in class trips you will have the opportunity to meet Americans, engage in conversation, and have experiences that you would not be able to have on your own. Your teacher gives you feedback on a variety of written assignments based on your research, trips, and discussions. By the end of the course, you will have more skill and confidence in your ability to use English in many formal and informal situations.
Intermediate Level 700 Core Course (all skills): This course prepares you to make the transition to advanced level by exposing you to language in more natural contexts. Course materials include newspaper articles and reviews, essays, extracts from novels and film scripts, listening extracts from radio and television (reviews, interviews, awards presentations), and short film sequences. Listening and speaking improve as you hear and practice how English is pronounced at normal speed. Analyzing dialogue makes your conversation more effective. Course materials encourage you to examine cultural aspects of language use in real life. In-class activities give you opportunities to discover and discuss classmates' experiences and opinions, and to compare your own culture and ways of communicating with those represented in film extracts. Writing assignments range from formal letters and essays to mini-scripts. Online grammar and in-class vocabulary work are reinforced through listening, speaking, and writing. For this course, clips are taken from the classic movies Stand and Deliver, A League of Their Own, Driving Miss Daisy, Billy Elliott, Mr. Bean, The Joy Luck Club, Dead Poets Society, Kramer vs. Kramer, Forrest Gump, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Witness, As Good As It Gets, Jerry McGuire, and There's Something About Mary.
Intermediate Level Elective--Academic Reading and Writing (Spring 2, Summer 2, and Fall 2 sessions): This course is for students who want to improve their academic writing skills using a variety of authentic readings that are organized around particular themes. The types of academic writing that are addressed in this course are: giving instructions, evaluating, and arguing. This course is for 600 and 700 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Activating Grammar (Spring 2, Summer 2, and Fall 2 sessions): This course gives you a chance to extend your understanding of the grammar you have learned previously. You review particular grammatical structures, analyze how native speakers use them when they are speaking, practice the structures in various activities, and apply them to specific communication tasks. The course helps you to speak (and write) English with more confidence and with fewer grammatical mistakes. It teaches strategies to continue noticing grammar patterns and improving your grammar even when you are not in class. This course is for 500 and 600 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Active Listening (Spring 2, Summer 2, Fall 2 Sessions): This listening course strengthens your ability to understand the fast speech of native speakers of English. By listening to news broadcasts, conversations, lectures and short clips from movies and sitcoms, you use listening strategies to understand the content. You participate in role-plays, small group discussions, and group projects to develop your skills as an active listener. This course alternates with Focus on Listening, which focuses on similar listening skills but different themes. This course is for 500 and 600 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Extending Grammar (Spring 1, Summer 1, and Fall 1 sessions): This course gives you a chance to extend your understanding of the grammar you have learned previously. You review particular grammatical structures, analyze how native-speakers use them when they are speaking, practice the structures in various activities, and apply them to specific communication tasks. The course helps you to speak (and write) English with more confidence and with fewer grammatical mistakes. It teaches strategies to continue noticing grammar patterns and improving your grammar even when you are not in class. This course is for 500 and 600 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Focus on Listening (Fall 1, Spring 1, Summer 1 Sessions): This listening course strengthens your ability to understand the fast speech of native speakers of English. By listening to news broadcasts, conversations, lectures and short clips from movies and sitcoms, you use listening strategies to understand the content. You participate in role-plays, small group discussions, and group projects to develop your skills as an active listener. This course alternates with Active Listening, which focuses on similar listening skills but different themes. This course is for 500 and 600 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Intermediate Reading and Discussion (every session): In this course you read a variety of newspaper and magazine articles, some short stories, and one novel. At the beginning of the course, you and your classmates vote on a group of topics to read about. Coursework helps you read more quickly and understand the writer's ideas more easily. In class each day you discuss what you have read. You choose a novel to read and do a project about your novel. Everyone is encouraged to share personal opinions in class discussions and in homework assignments. By the end of the course you should be more effective at reading, finding out what others think, and expressing your ideas. This course is for 500 and 600 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Financially Speaking (every session): The aim of this course is to help you increase your reading, speaking, and listening skills through the study of the stock market. The core of the course is an investment simulation in which you work in a small group to research and select a portfolio of stocks. You and your classmates monitor stock market developments daily and in class decide whether to buy, sell, or hold your stocks. As you read and discuss how international economic developments affect the stock market, you acquire a wide range of new vocabulary about international financial markets. This course is for 600 and 700 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Issues in Business (every session): This course strengthens your ability to read about themes such as corporate culture, management styles, technology in business, environmental issues, and global economics. It is of interest to people working in business and business students, who want to explore issues of constant importance. Specific reading skills and team discussions allow you to understand the content of articles more easily, and judge the validity of authors' arguments. Vocabulary-building strategies will encourage you to learn and use more business-related words and expressions. This course is for 700 and 800 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Listening and Speaking in Business (every session): The purpose of this course is to increase the speaking and listening skills of business students and professionals. You improve your ability to use spoken English fluently, accurately, and persuasively in a number of business situations, including business case analyses, problem-solving discussions, business meetings, and different types of public speaking. You increase your listening comprehension and develop business vocabulary through listening to business news broadcasts and viewing televised case studies of American corporations. From time to time articles from The Wall Street Journal are read and discussed. This course is for 600 and 700 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Pronunciation Practice (every session): This course helps you improve your pronunciation. You learn how North American English is spoken and why it sounds different from your native language. You learn and practice the accurate pronunciation of vowels, consonants, stress, rhythm, intonation, and reduced pronunciation through the use of models. Activities include reciting poems and limericks, participating in discussion groups, performing role plays, and giving short presentations. In addition, you work on improving individual pronunciation problems. This course requires working in the language lab with the teacher one class period per week, as well as doing additional lab work for homework assignments.
Intermediate Level Elective--Speaking in Action (every session): Speaking in Action improves your speaking and listening skills through improvisation, communication games, and drama activities. You work on improving your fluency in conversation by learning how to control and direct interactions with other people. You expand and put into practice your understanding of how language is used to accomplish various conversation goals. You also read, watch, analyze, and act out short scenes from contemporary plays, as well as invent a short play of your own for a final performance for the ELP community.
TOEFL Preparation (every session): This course helps you develop the language skills and test-taking strategies needed to increase your scores on the Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). All areas of the TOEFL are addressed: listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar and vocabulary. You analyze test content and have substantial opportunity for focused practice and feedback on your performance. In addition, you learn tips and strategies for generating and organizing supporting ideas and composing a response to essay questions, such as those on the Test of Written English (TWE). This course is also offered as a Super-Intensive course option. The course may be scheduled in either or both the daytime or evening, depending upon enrollments.
Intermediate Level Elective--Writing and Reading for Academic Purposes (Fall 1, Spring 1, and Summer 1 sessions): If you want to develop academic reading and writing skills, this course will help. Your textbook uses a variety of authentic readings organized around particular themes to provide a framework for the course. You will learn to read and write the academic form of giving instructions, evaluating arguments and ideas, and arguing from fact and opinion. This course alternates with Academic Reading and Writing, which uses the same textbook but different units. This course is for 600 and 700 level students only.
Intermediate Level Elective--Writing Workshop (every session):: In this course you develop grammatical accuracy and confidence in writing English. Editing techniques teach you about sentence structure and about the mistakes that often appear in your writing. You try out new strategies for getting ideas, organizing information, revising and editing your work. You write for yourself and for others, in response to readings, pictures, events in your daily life, and questions from the class. There are many opportunities to experiment with various types of writing. You act as a reader as well as a writer during the course by giving feedback to your classmates and using their feedback to edit drafts of your assignments.