Accelerative Learning: ICAL ESOL Course Summary

ICAL's English and ESOL Course Summaries

Level 2Me and My World (Novice Low/Novice Mid)

The second course of the series takes the adventure from students’ neighborhoods to the world! It also brings students to the next proficiency level by developing the basic 10 content categories at a deeper level with more elaborate themes.

Students begin on familiar territory with a unit about themselves. Embedded within this unit theme are content categories such as introductions and social greetings, numbers, prepositions, directions, quantities, questions, personal preferences, the senses, current affairs, emotions, daily routines, professions, travel, nurturing living things, safety, and health.

Students complete a comprehensive journal about themselves, describing themselves, their favorite things, their daily routines, their appearance, their emotions, their interests and goals. Students are also introduced to the first of four famous artists who will be explored throughout the course.

The first artist in the spotlight is Georgia O’Keeffe. Through the artist series, students learn about the artists, their styles, and their works. Through this exploration, students build on their English skills – colors, shapes, basic objects, personal information – and express themselves through their own interpretation and reproductions of the featured artist.

Next, students explore their homes, families and immediate environments. Students extend their journaling to include their families, extend their nurturing skills to more living things, are introduced to short Suggestopedic texts and are introduced to the second artist in the series, Vincent Van Gogh. Cross curriculum skills in math, social studies, character education, fine arts and science are embedded within the activities and unit theme.

Students experience a 21 lesson unit about African American pioneers – again, integrating cross curriculum skills in math, science, social studies with language arts. Students learn about 17 specific pioneers from several fields, journaling their lives and accomplishments while revisiting basic content categories and English grammar and lexical topics. This unit also focuses on character education and student goal planning.

This course takes students through thematic units dealing with the world, such as the rainforest, ancient Egypt and the earth. Students examine artists Monet and Matisse and build on their English and ESOL skills through these cross curriculum themes. Students end the course with a focus on the future – their vision and goals and aspirations.

The student journal created in course two serves as the basis of future journals created in each course that follows. The journal also serves as a measurable demonstration of skill and vocabulary acquisition from the students that the teachers and parents can use as a benchmark of progress throughout the course.

Since the journal includes lots of art, it is also a good way to measure the self-esteem of the students by observing the colors used, the completeness of the art work, how the student describes the art that he or she has drawn, and many other indications that teachers are taught in ICAL training to observe and interpret.

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