English Writing Labs

The project, which began as a pilot in fall 2000, has continued with joint support from the English Department and the Academic Skills Centre. The objective of the project is to give extra help to weaker students in Writing English.

Fall and Winter Semesters

In a fifteen-week course, it is difficult to prepare ESL students to meet the 101 exit criteria. Many enter the program ill prepared and cannot keep up with the pace of the class. The focus of the labs is on reading and writing skills, through short texts to which students write responses. The Academic Skills Centre labs provide students the opportunity to improve their English language skills, particularly grammar and sentence structure and increased time to practice these skills. In addition, the small group format offers these students additional practice in reading comprehension, pronunciation and vocabulary development.

At the beginning of the semester, the English teacher selects four or five weak students who would benefit from the lab. The Centre then arranges lab sessions depending on the number of students referred and the availability of Academic Skills Centre staff. Details of this process and the dates are sent to you each semester.

Students are required to attend an Academic Skills Centre lab 1½ hours each week for the entire semester, for which they receive 15% towards the Writing English course grade. Students are expected to attend all labs. We need the cooperation of the teachers to encourage students to attend and we maintain ongoing communication with teachers so that we know, for example, if a student who should be attending the lab, has dropped the course or has special needs.

There will be 12 lab sessions of 1 ½ hours. These labs are grouped into 6 writing units, each lasting 2 weeks and a final evaluation in the last week.

During the first Lab of each unit, students will read a short text; based on this reading, they will learn new vocabulary, practice pronunciation, examine how the material is organized, write a thesis statement and begin to develop an outline.

During the second Lab of each unit, using the same text, students will complete the outline and write an essay. Each Lab will also focus on aspects of grammar and sentence structure.

Summer Courses

English Writing Labs are also offered to accompany summer courses. These are similar to the labs given in the Fall and Winter semesters but are necessarily more frequent. Lab times are established in consultation with the teachers of the 603-101 Writing English course.