Academic Catalog

NCEL 447: ADVANCED VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT FOR READING & WRITING

Foothill College Course Outline of Record

Foothill College Course Outline of Record
Heading Value
Effective Term: Summer 2025
Units: 0
Hours: 36 lecture per quarter (36 total per quarter)
Advisory: Intended for students whose native language is not English.
Degree & Credit Status: Non-Degree-Applicable Non-Credit Course
Basic Skills, 2 Levels Below Transfer
Foothill GE: Non-GE
Transferable: None
Grade Type: Non-Credit Course (Receives no Grade)
Repeatability: Unlimited Repeatability
Formerly: ESL 177, ESLL 247

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Use new vocabulary correctly in sentences, paragraphs, short compositions, and short responses to comprehension questions.
  • Recognize collocations, roots and affixes.

Description

This course is intended to meet the specific vocabulary needs of ESL students in an academic setting and expand on students' knowledge of academic vocabulary. This course focuses not only on a vocabulary item but also on words related to that item, different grammatical forms of that item, and affixes that the word might have. Students will encounter multiple exposures to target words in meaningful contexts.

Course Objectives

The student will be able to:

  1. Acquire new vocabulary from the Academic Word List.
  2. Retain newly acquired vocabulary from the Academic Word List.
  3. Use an English-English dictionary and thesaurus to expand understanding of vocabulary.

Course Content

  1. Acquire new vocabulary
    1. Complete word family charts
    2. Recognize roots and affixes
    3. Recognize collocations
    4. Use context clues to learn meaning
  2. Retain newly acquired vocabulary
    1. Use vocabulary correctly in vocabulary exercises
    2. Use new vocabulary correctly in sentences, paragraphs, short compositions, and short responses to comprehension questions
  3. Use an English-English dictionary and thesaurus to expand understanding of vocabulary
    1. Develop facility to access all linguistic information about targeted vocabulary in English-English dictionaries
    2. Choose the correct meaning of a word with multiple meanings
    3. Identify synonyms, and antonyms

Lab Content

Not applicable.

Special Facilities and/or Equipment

When taught online, ongoing access to computer with email software and capabilities and current internet browser, email address.

Method(s) of Evaluation

Methods of Evaluation may include but are not limited to the following:

Activities such as matching, completion, true/false, multiple choice, or short definitions
Activities involving original sentences and/or short compositions utilizing new vocabulary

Method(s) of Instruction

Methods of Instruction may include but are not limited to the following:

Lecture

Representative Text(s) and Other Materials

Bull, Pat. Academic Word Power 3. 2004.

Jones, Barbara. Academic Word Power 4. 2004.

Although these texts are older than the suggested "5 years or newer" standard, they remain seminal texts in this area of study.

The following four editions of the Inside Reading series may be rotated in sequence:
Burgmeier, Arline. Inside Reading: the Academic Word List in Context 1. 2012.
Zwier, Lawrence. Inside Reading: the Academic Word List in Context 2. 2012.
Rubin, Bruce. Inside Reading: the Academic Word List in Context 3. 2012.
Richmond, Kent. Inside Reading: the Academic Word List in Context 4. 2012.
If a faculty member would prefer to use a textbook not on the list, they must contact a full-time faculty member who regularly teaches the course to explain how the adoption would serve to achieve the learning outcomes specified in the course outline of record.

Types and/or Examples of Required Reading, Writing, and Outside of Class Assignments

  1. Readings from the text and outside sources.
  2. Writing sentences and paragraphs to practice using new vocabulary.

Discipline(s)

English as a Second Language (ESL)