English as a Second Language Academy

The ESL Academy’s program length and structure is designed to increase the proficiency of a low intermediate student to advanced university proficiency in one year. As such, the Academy’s approach is rigorous. The ESL Academy offers five levels of instruction per term. Each term lasts 8 weeks with a total of 40 instructional weeks per year. During each term students practice and refine their academic language skills in grammar, reading, writing, listening and speaking. In addition, skills classes are offered in accent reduction, research writing, and rhetoric and logic. The ESL Academy is designed with the following distinctives in mind:Ma​stery of the meaning and accurate spelling of academic English vocabularyUniversity-specific pragmatics such as disagreeing, validating the ideas of others, and awareness of expected classroom behaviorAmerican pronunciation, stress, and tone reinforced in almost all skill areas and levelsCritical thinking skills such as classification, inductive and deductive reasoningAPA research formattingWriting classes that include a high proportion of in-class writing