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Programmatic Overview   

In 2009, the entire Harvard Summer School is celebrating 200 years of Darwin, and so the Institute for English Language Programs (IEL), which normally has a theme for each teaching session, is observing this anniversary by using texts and engaging issues that reflect Darwin’s complex legacy.

IEL assumes that ELP students, who are in the program because they need to improve their English language skills and thereby enhance their chances for success in their graduate and professional careers, already know that although writing and discussion skills are obvious measures of proficiency, the full emergence of these skills depends upon outstanding reading and comprehension skills which permit swift and accurate critical analysis of concepts. Hence, the ELP program exposes students to a wide variety of reading materials, trains them to read these materials deeply and rapidly, and guides them to use content efficiently as they “learn more than one thing at a time” in group and individual work, use the opportunity of this intensive course to achieve linguistic equilibrium, and demonstrate new knowledge in numerous oral and written assignments.

The ELP curriculum balances the appreciation of the academic and cultural gifts that students have developed in their home countries with close study of American academic mores.  The program is particularly concerned to advise students about the issue of plagiarism, and it emphasizes the use of the online Harvard texts Writing with Sources and Writing with Internet Sources to ensure that students are aware of the constraints that govern the use of others’ work, the need to document sources, and the desirability of going beyond memorization and rote to use language creatively.

ELP instructors craft classroom activities that develop:
•    the ability to read critically and analytically, so that students can examine how one author treats different problems, how different authors address the same problem (and in different media), and why problems may have ephemeral or enduring importance;
•    familiarity with the scientific method, so that students can practice hypothesis formation and analysis, data collection, and examination of the implications of their work;
•    the ability to interpret and make reasonable conclusions about language presented in different formats such as statistical tables, graphs, or formulae, conversations, and creative output;
•    the ability to synthesize sources and contribute arguments that are fluent, cohesive, persuasive, and adequately supported, by pursuing the process method in producing written and oral work;
•    knowledge of the roles of languages in culture, by scrutinizing examples of variation and change in the social and syntactic use of English and observing the norms for oral and written comprehensibility;
•    historical awareness, by ensuring that students broaden their perspectives on human endeavor and on the institutions and traditions of the world.

Learner Training

The ELP program begins with a session of learner training that involves study of the Common Readings; explanation of the academic focus on consultation, negotiation, demonstration, and practice; and the setting of challenging linguistic goals -- including careful and constant monitoring of one’s own progress toward these goals and modification of these goals and procedures if necessary. In this period, students are clearly advised of their responsibility to:
•    attend all classes and prepare all assignments carefully, using all of the designated texts to achieve the goals of the program;
•    contribute their particular talents to group work -- which permits them to speak up, listen accurately in real time, be professionally monitored, engage in self-monitoring, and benefit from academic exchange with other brilliant minds;
•    understand the forms that feedback will take, including requesting clarification from other students and the instructor and receiving "direct teaching" -- explanation by an instructor of a linguistic point  (as opposed to sitting passively in "teacher-fronted" classes);
•    make conscious links between what is happening in the classroom and in the world encompassing the classroom -- via constantly updated links to contemporary journalism.

Proficiency Profiles and Goals

The Harvard English Language Placement Test (HELP Test) is an established in-house instrument that is used to make the first cut in creating IEL classes by means of a listening comprehension test, error identification and vocabulary components, and a reading comprehension test. Subsequent to this test, students write a timed essay on an academic topic and engage in oral diagnostic exercises to finalize their class assignments.

ELP students tend to score at Levels C, D and E on the HELP, and their class syllabi respectively aim at having students:

LEVEL C
1. obtain the gist of controlled authentic texts and track their development;
2. discover and interpret issues in a variety of texts, and incorporate personal background knowledge in oral and written responses to them;
3. argue an opinion clearly and cohesively;
4. employ the process writing skills needed to produce a five-paragraph essay;
5. use techniques for incorporating secondary sources;
6. express personal needs for structural accuracy in production;
7. recognize irregularities and complexities of English as an international language in its written and spoken forms;
8. apply culturally appropriate strategies for classroom activities.

LEVEL D
1. understand the main ideas and most details in authentic materials on a variety of topics;
2. analyze the development of a given text and recognize contradictory positions;
3. synthesize generalizations and abstractions;
4. use authentic materials as springboards for oral and written production;
5. employ standard techniques for incorporating multiple secondary sources;
6. utilize a variety of stylistic structures and demonstrate mastery of the conventions of Standard English;
7. understand explicit and implied messages of authentic communication;
8. understand idiomatic language;
9. apply culturally appropriate strategies for maintaining classroom interactions.

LEVEL E
1. interpret and respond critically to complex authentic materials;
2. independently use the process approach to writing;
3. use a variety of stylistic and rhetorical strategies effectively and appropriately;
4. evaluate and respond to explicit and implied messages of authentic communication;
5. use contextualized idiomatic expressions;
6. identify and fill specific linguistic gaps based on personal experience and goals;
7. comply with prevailing conversational norms in a variety of professional settings.

Texts to be provided by GSAS:

•    Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Little Brown and Co. 2008. ( the non-fiction text)
•    Grant, Linda. Well Said: Advanced English Pronunciation (Text and CD package) Third Edition. Heinle & Heinle. 2010. (the pronunciation book)
•    Hacker, Diana. Rules for Writers Sixth Edition. 2008. ( the writing text)
•    Jacobus, Lee A.   A World of Ideas. Eighth Edition. 2010. ( the reader)
•    Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow. Ballantine Books. 1996. ( the novel)

IEL will provide:

•    the ELP Orientation Brochure, including the Common Readings and apparatus;
•    the Innovators’ Issue of The New Yorker, 2008;
•    links to the readings assigned for lectures by Harvard faculty and daily updates from the global media;
•    site visits to the JFK Library, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Peabody-Essex Museum; and a Duck Tour.

Procedures:

After completing the HELP test, scheduled for Sunday, July 26 at 2:00 pm in the Science Center, students will produce a writing sample. On Monday, July 27, students will meet for a workshop at 2:30 p.m. so that the instructors may conduct oral diagnostic exercises to finalize class membership and begin Learner Training. Thereafter, small morning classes will work daily with the reader, novel, and the writing and pronunciation books on Integrated Skills; the afternoon workshops  -- in which all ELP students will constitute one seminar group -- will use the non-fiction text, articles assigned by Harvard professors or designated for the site visits, as well as The New Yorker to prepare for spirited participation in Q&A sessions after the lectures and a variety of group and individual presentations. Instructors will constantly monitor students and frequently offer corrective feedback and guidance.