IPM 012 - READING AND WRITING II

This is a high intermediate literature-based course for English language learners who have begun the process of integration into an American University setting. In this course, students will learn and apply the reading and writing skills essential for academic learning, inquiry, and discourse in the context of authentic academic reading and writing tasks. This course offers a hands-on workshop approach to authentic reading and writing tasks and includes teacher modeling, coaching, and feedback to students throughout the reading and writing processes. Contemporary academic and literary texts will be used to develop students’ critical reading and vocabulary, writing, listening and speaking skills. When possible, materials from courses the students are taking will be integrated into classroom activities and assignments.This course is cross-listed with IFY012. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 013 - READING AND WRITING III

This course is designed to help students understand their current abilities to read to and to write English and to provide assistance and practices to facilitate development of these skills that will promote success in their studies at the next level. Students will be required to read to both short and long selections to practice determining the writer’s intended message in addition to comprehending details and facts. Students will be provided opportunities to improve their abilities to express understandings and ideas in academic writings while critiquing the works of others. Students will write research papers to become familiar with aspects of conducting research and following APA guidelines to produce academically acceptable papers. This course is cross-listed with IFY013. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 032 - LISTENING AND SPEAKING II

Listening and Speaking II focuses on the comprehension of oral lectures in a variety of liberal arts disciplines. You will learn how to be prepared for lectures, how to listen better during lectures, and how to recognize what you missed in a lecture. There is a strong emphasis on note-taking strategies and class discussions on the lecture. Wherever possible, recordings of authentic university lectures will be used. Speaking focuses on the clear pronunciation of common words and phrases and continues the development of English pronunciation patterns of stress and intonation. Students will practice English speaking skills in different settings utilizing a variety of online and interactive tools through classroom activities, debates and presentations. This course is cross-listed with IFY032. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 033 - LISTENING AND SPEAKING III

Instruction in this Listening and Speaking III course is designed to help students understand their current abilities to listen to and to speak English and to provide assistance and practices to facilitate development of these skills that will promote success in their studies at the next level. Students will be required to listen to both short and long lectures to practice detecting the speaker’s intonations and attitudes in addition to comprehending details and facts. Students will gain experience listening to multiple native speakers at the same time. Students will have opportunities to practice both short and long extemporaneous and researched speeches to develop their speaking fluency. Students will also practice interpreting, maintaining the floor, and adding speech to another speakers ideas on the spot. This course is cross-listed with IFY 033. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 042 - GRAMMAR II

The instruction in Grammar II is designed to build students’ abilities to speak and write English effectively. This course builds on students’ prior knowledge to reinforce basic language skills and improve the fluency and accuracy of high intermediate-level students. High-interest, academic content area reading lessons, as well as spoken and written assignments keep students involved as they learn and practice the various parts of speech and sentence construction. This course is cross-listed with IFY042. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 043 - GRAMMAR III

This course aims to build students’ capabilities in their spoken and written English. This course builds on students’ prior knowledge to reinforce language skills and improve the fluency and accuracy of advanced-level students. This course is cross-listed with IFY043. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 061 - UNITED STATES CULTURE I

This course will offer English Language Learners a means for analyzing and evaluating complex social issues and relate these issues specifically to the social and moral landscape of the United States. This course provides a survey of theoretical frameworks for the interpretation of US culture over time and involves interdisciplinary study of the US cultural history from early colonial encounters to the present day. The term, “culture,’’ as used in this course, means the ways in which Americans understand themselves and interact with each other and their environment. It includes their institutions as well as their literature, their family structures, their politics and economics, work, habits, rituals, values and beliefs. Because of the social diversity of “Americans”, the study of culture in the United States refers to many cultures and must ask how this diversity coexists with national identity. This course teaches critical thinking skills, methods for cultural observation, and graduate-level inquiry and research methods. The course has three main purposes: (1) to familiarize international students with the dissimilar ways that various disciplines study culture; (2) to give them a broad knowledge of various facets of American culture; and (3) to develop a more sophisticated understanding of one aspect of American culture through the completion of a 7- to 10-page final research paper.

Credits: 3

IPM 062 - UNITED STATES CULTURE II

This course will continue the objectives achieved in US Culture I by offering English Language Learners a means for continuing their analysis and evaluation of the complex social and moral issues that are specific to the culture of the United States. This course specifically focuses on current debates in American Studies by examining a number of culturally and politically relevant topics in greater detail. Topics include the following: Debates about the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy resources; the future attainability of the “American Dream” and debates about what “success” means and who has access to this; Public Education Reform and debates about Testing, Learning Outcomes and Teacher Accountability; cross cultural comparisons of health care systems and debates about whether or not the current entitlement programs sustainable for future generations and in what form? The course examines the ways in which varying disciplines make meaning of world issues and common social problems and puts specific modes of inquiry into practice. Students learn how to seek, produce, and evaluate different forms of evidence and how to shape this evidence in the direction of a broader project consisting of the completion of a 15- to 20-page final research paper.

Credits: 3

IPM 071 - CRITICAL THINKING I

Instruction in this Critical Thinking I course is designed to help students understand the processes and to develop the necessary skills to interpret, analyze and evaluate ideas and arguments. These skills will be developed by teaching them explicitly and directly rather than indirectly. Students will be exposed to analyzing reasoning and to developing their own arguments. A requirement will be imposed on all students to keep a critical thinking notebook to help them track their progress by answering questions as they are set. Because critical thinking involves attempting to change the ways in which people think, students will be given comprehensive practice and feedback. This course is cross-listed with IFY 071. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 072 - CRITICAL THINKING II

This course continues the objectives achieved in Critical Thinking I by exploring the process of thinking critically and further guiding international students in thinking more clearly, insightfully and effectively. This course will explore the field of critical thinking from an international perspective, explaining how various cultures define such concepts as effective thinking, problem solving, logical reasoning, issue analysis, and knowledge. Students will develop a rich and culturally diverse understanding of the critical thinking process. They will enhance their own critical thinking abilities by analyzing varied cultural perspectives on events in the world around them. Because the aim of critical thinking is to deepen your skills at everyday kinds of reasoning, the primary learning goals for this course are focused on expanding your capabilities for: • Understanding the logical structures of the primary classes of arguments used in the everyday contexts of life; • Analyzing arguments within these classes for their strengths and weaknesses; • Recognizing common fallacies in reasoning, including reasoning involving determining probabilities; • Constructing good arguments using principles of informal reasoning; • Reflecting on your own thinking practices; and • Listening to the arguments of others without prejudging these arguments in advance. This course is cross-listed with IFY072. Graduate students will have additional course requirements.

Credits: 3

IPM 090 - GRE/GMAT PREP COURSE

This course is designed to help prepare students for success on both the GRE and GMAT exams. We will review math, verbal, and critical thinking skills, and learn strategies for approaching the question types. The course will incorporate lecture, note-taking, class discussion, class exercises, homework, quizzes, and a full-length practice test.

Credits: 0