NC 326: ESL: Speaking - Intermediate

Citrus College Course Outline of Record

Citrus College Course Outline of Record
Heading Value
Effective Term: Fall 2021
Credits: 0
Total Contact Hours: 63
Lecture Hours : 63
Lab Hours: 0
Hours Arranged: 0
Outside of Class Hours: 126
Transferable to CSU: No
Transferable to UC: No
Grading Method: Non-Credit Course

Catalog Course Description

ESL: Speaking - Intermediate is designed for English language learners at low and high intermediate levels. Students will learn and apply language and speaking skills to gain and enhance oral communication in American English. This course focuses on vocabulary development, conversations, formal presentations, and pronunciation. Open entry/exit. 63 lecture hours.

Course Objectives

  • Identify and use appropriate spoken English for various functional contexts and everyday life topics.
  • Interpret and utilize a range of new words, phrases, expressions, and idioms related to a variety of common and functional life topics.
  • Identify and use appropriate spoken English to perform various functional language tasks e.g. make basic comparisons; make, discuss, and relay plans; give and follow multistep instructions; give more detailed reasons; interpret, discuss, and present problems and provide suggestions, ideas, and advice for solutions; discuss and come to compromises; tell stories, narratives, and personal and impersonal experiences.
  • Use common conversational skills to replicate features of American English speaking and enhance oral communication abilities e.g. begin, maintain and extend conversations; identify, interpret, and utilize various types and degrees help; use clarification strategies.
  • Produce comprehensible spoken American English through pronunciation conventions such as syllable stress, word stress, and sentence intonation for various sentence and question types.
  • Use grammatical forms in oral speech with some accuracy to convey intended meaning.

Major Course Content

  1. Vocabulary – Interpret and utilize a range of new words, phrases, expressions, and idioms related to a variety of common and functional life topics.
    1. Utilize various word families at a basic level.
    2. Topics covered may include but are not limited to
      1. Current events, transportation, travel, vacations, work, jobs, careers, weather, the natural world, the environment, food, cooking, shopping, meeting people, technology, leisure time, sports, entertainment, art, safety, and community.
  2. Language Functions – Identify and use appropriate spoken English in various functional contexts.
    1. Use and interpret common American idioms.
    2. Ask and answer questions based on learned and familiar content.
    3. Describe in some detail.
    4. Make basic comparisons.
    5. Give and follow multistep instructions.
    6. Give more detailed reasons.
    7. Make, discuss, and relay plans.
    8. Identify and convey accurate sequence of events.
    9. Respond to objections and criticism.
    10. Interpret, discuss, and present problems and provide suggestions, ideas, and advice for solutions.
    11. Discuss and come to compromises.
    12. Hypothesize at a very basic level.
    13. Tell stories, narratives, and personal and impersonal experiences.
    14. Use common, high frequency phrases, expressions, and tone to express various states such as basic sympathy, irritation, excitement, support, idea, desire, preferences, abilities, complaint, accusation, defense, and justification.
    15. Use common, high frequency phrases and expressions to perform various functions such as giving advice, persuading, emphasizing points, giving opinions, stating preferences, inviting, complimenting, complaining, making observations, and so forth.
  3. Speaking Skills – Use common conversational skills to replicate features of American English speaking and enhance oral communication abilities.
    1. Begin, maintain and extend (lead) conversations by making various types of statements and questions.
      1. Retrieve requested information, gather information, ask follow-up questions, use basic tag questions, confirm or deny assumptions at a very basic level, give advice, summarize, paraphrase, keep focus, and shift focus.
    2. Identify, interpret, and utilize various types and degrees help.
      1. Differentiate between command, admonition, advice, suggestion, idea, lack of ability to offer help, lack of desire to help, and/or indifference.
    3. Identify, interpret, and utilize various types and degrees of politeness and agreement.
    4. Use clarification strategies.
    5. Use abbreviated and reduced forms of speech in informal contexts (e.g. “Want some?,” “You think so?,” “Not now,” and the like).
    6. Use syllable stress, word stress, and sentence intonation correctly for various sentence and question types.
    7. Pronounce common problematic consonants and vowels and irregular word pronunciations.
    8. Identify and relay main ideas.
    9. Identify topics and subtopics.
    10. Identify and relay important details.
  4. Grammar expression – Use grammatical forms in oral speech to coherently express various time frames and functions.
    1. Verb Tenses
      1. Simple present – current experiences and observations, habits, routines, facts, general truths, schedules
      2. Present continuous – current conditions, actions in progress, near future
      3. Past – past experiences, sequential narratives, focus on completion of action
      4. Future
        • Near future vs. remote future
        • Definite and indefinite plans in the future
        • Requests, invitations, offers, decisions made in the moment
        • Future necessity
        • Threat/warning)
      5. Very basic present perfect – duration from past to present and "Have you ever" questions and responses
    2. Present and future real conditionals
    3. Comparative adjectives and adverbs
    4. Tag questions and negative questions
    5. Phrasal Verbs
    6. Time order words
    7. Signal words and phrases 
    8. “Too,” “enough,” and “not enough” with adjectives and nouns

Suggested Reading Other Than Required Textbook

Instructor supplied materials

Examples of Required Writing Assignments

None (this course focuses on speaking skills)

Examples of Outside Assignments

Gather responses to a survey by fielding responses of at least 10 different people. Collect information and give an oral report of at least 2 minutes on your findings.
Use the following 10 idioms to complete the written dialogue for each.
Listen to this interview with so and so. Then answer the multiple-choice comprehension questions.

Instruction Type(s)

Lecture, Online Education Lecture