XXX Middle School High Intermediate ESL Course Information

Teacher: Ms. Ruth DeKold

Course Description:
In High Intermediate ESL, the focus will be on polishing speaking skills, adding vocabulary and
grammar tools, and increasing the depth and complexity of communication (written, read,
spoken, heard, and seen). Learning to look for and understand others stories to be able to better
understand, collaborate with, and care for people will be the major theme throughout this course.
This, and other relevant themes will be explored via film and pictures; written sources including
personal accounts, novels, and resources on how to understand others; and reflection on and
sharing of students own experiences.
With this theme in mind, the class will focus on learning and applying reading skills to a variety
of informational, argumentative, and narrative texts. These texts will require students to adapt
their reading practices to many rhetorical situations. Students will focus on understanding
audience, situation (exigence), and purpose of rhetorical works in order to better understand and
utilize the information they are presented with. Students will learn how to make claims about a
text and support their claims with evidence. They will learn how to apply the above
understanding to writing and speaking assignments.
In reading, writing, listening, and speech, fluency is a goal. Classroom discussion, small groups,
and collaborative projects will provide many opportunities to develop both this fluency and other
communicative skills. Instruction throughout smaller projects throughout the year will prepare
students for their final project, which will be a combination of speaking, writing, and visual
components that demonstrate students understanding of the course material as applied to a
person or group of people that they struggled to understand before or during this year.
Homework Policy:
Reading and research assignemtns are vital to our class. Please keep up to date on these
assignments. If you are struggling with the workload or material, please come talk to me and I
will do my best to help you. There are also tools on the class website that can be very helpful.
Please use these! Written homework is graded according on a scale from one to five. Homework
assignments that are turned in on time, that show you have read or researched the material, and
that show effort will be given a five. Homework on readings after we have discussed them in
class will receive a zero. For homework not discussed in class, you will have one day to turn it in
and will lose one point. Homework turned in later than one day will receive a grade of zero.
Notebook Policy:
You will keep a 3-ring binder, which we will make and organize in class. Please bring this to
class daily.
Attendance/Tardiness:

1
You must make up work missed during an absence. It is your responsibility to find out what
work you missed and/or get class notes from your classmates. I expect you to be in class on time.
If you are late, you must bring a note from the office or the teacher who kept you late. This is all
in addition to the district policy on attendance, which can be found on the district website.
Grading Policy:
Homework: 15%
Project Completion and 10%
Effort:
Portfolio: 75%

Homework will be graded as mentioned above. Project Completion and effort will be graded on
a five-point scale according to the rubric posted online. Your portfolio will be graded according
to the Portfolio Rubric at the end of the class, but I will give you an estimated grade if you ask
for it during the year.
**Quizzes and other formative assessments will be used to assess your understanding, but not
included in your grade.
Texts:
TBD
Contact:
Ms. DeKold
(208) 346-0795
rdekold@xxxmiddleschool.dxx.org

Thanks to the following websites for their helpful examples of course information and portfolio guidelines:
http://nsmseng7.webstarts.com/uploads/Course_Info_-_New_for_2012-2013_-_Reg_and_Collab.pdf
http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/ECT/app/literacy_portfolios/pdf/chapter3.pdf