Advanced English as a Second Language courses, also known as English for Academic Purposes (EAP), must stress critical reading, paraphrasing, summarizing, and synthesizing as precursors to source-based essay writing. These skills are necessary and continue to develop throughout their academic careers. Online and blended EAP courses can offer an abundance of content in multi-modal formats and provide unique opportunities for students to gather information, negotiate meaning, and compose text-responsible prose. Digital reading and writing within and outside of a learning management system fosters a team-approach to learning important subject matter and information literacy skills. Novice writers benefit from focused, ongoing feedback from instructors, peers, and third-party tutors in a multi-draft approach to essay assignments. The recursive nature of reading and writing across a semester-long course leads to increased confidence and competence with academic discourse; the blended and online environments afford students freedom yet responsibility with meeting expectations and deadlines.
In this session, the presenter will share strategies for teaching note taking, outlining, synthesizing, paraphrasing, and summarizing as important skills that link college reading and writing. Exercises that exploit Web 2.0 tools and other digital resources to improve academic reading, writing, and vocabulary in a collaborative online environment will be shown within the context of an advanced EAP course comprised of four thematically-related units. Printed and online readings are at the core, with critical practice in annotating and evaluating texts leading to source-based essays. The presenter will point out specific components of online and blended courses that demonstrate how skills are taught and practiced in a recursive manner throughout the course. Attendees will also be shown some ways of providing formative and summative feedback to distance students in synchronous and asynchronous environments. These include the use of webconferncing, wikis, dsicussion forums, software, and a third-party, online tutoring service.
The overarching goal of the session is not to tout one course as exemplary but to emphasize the need for reading and writing instruction across disciplines and share strategies for success. Participants will be invited to discuss their own experiences and new directions in online course design including the applicability of teaching academic literacy skills in their own subject areas.
