Teacher Instruction Page

 

This unit is created in order to provide computer assisted support in teaching ESL students to operate successfully in everyday communication in an English-speaking community. This unit may be done in class by meeting in a computer lab, or it can be done by the students outside of class as homework. We highly recommend using the unit as a part of the orientation session held by International Students Services at Iowa State University, the English 101 courses, or similar courses at other institutions that help international students to adjust to a new environment.

 

The interactive activities in this unit were designed with high intermediate level students in mind. In particular, the students targeted are the international students newly arrived at Iowa State University (Ames, USA).

 

This unit is provided free of charge to help international students get adjusted to the everyday routine after they arrive in Ames, IA.  

 

Objectives:

The activities are designed to provide students the opportunity to acquire basic pragmatic skills in order to avoid possible communication breakdowns in the situations they are likely to face during their first days in the USA. Students will be able to construct pragmatic knowledge and use this knowledge outside the classroom.

 

Overview of teaching unit:

The unit consists of several parts:

  • Pre-activity test: It is designed to help students develop an idea about the everyday communication problems they may encounter in an English-speaking community.
  • Thematic pages: These are the parts of the unit-each of them is devoted to a different communication situation based on the place where the communication takes place: “Bank”, “Supermarket”, “Hotel”, “Fast-food restaurant”, etc. Each part contains a reading text providing an overview of the situation, a set of interactive tasks such as cloze (filling in gaps) and matching activities, and a video file where learners can watch ISU international students handling everyday communication situations.
  • Post-activity test: It is designed for students to try out some of the communication skills they have learned. It consists of true/false and multiple choice questions supplemented by audio and visual components.
  • “Share your story” database: The database is a collection of real stories generously provided by the ISU international students where they tell about their experiences during their first weeks in Ames and the difficulties they had due to cultural and linguistic barriers. Your students can search the database for stories shared by people from their country, or the location of the stories. Encourage your students to contribute their own stories to our collection.

 

 

Readings for the unit are taken from “American English for Everyday and Academic Use: An Upper Intermediate English Course for Classroom Use and Self-Study” (Eds. Tretyakov, U., Boltunova, S., & Tsepisheva, M.) published by Academic Project, St. Petersburg, 1996.

 

Technical requirements:

In order to view video and audio files, students will need a computer with access to the Internet and complete with speakers and a sound card. The software needed is Macromedia Flash Player 6. Hot potato quizzes may not work appropriately when accessed by Internet Explorer on a Macintosh computer.

 

Note: This unit and the tasks associated with it are subject to copyright and should not be used for commercial purposes. However, fellow ESL/EFL teachers are encouraged to implement this unit in their own classroom.

The unit is supposed to be further developed, i.e. more topics could be added to help international students to look for housing, to make local and long-distance calls, to use postal services, etc. We would appreciate your comments and suggestions. You may e-mail them to volkerh@iastate.edu. 

 

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