In this course, students get practical experience at conversing in English, both with the (native English-speaking) instructor and with each other. Attendance is crucial; if a student has to be absent because of illness or family duties and notifies the instructor within a week, that student will get partial credit for the time missed, but otherwise the only way to get credit for any particular week is to actually show up for class.
This course is intended to help students improve both their pronunciation of the sounds of English and their recognition of those sounds when used by others; we will also be looking at ways to figure out how English words are pronounced from the way they're spelled. Most class-meetings will be roughly evenly divided between lecture & practice.
The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with major authors and works of English Literature from the Anglo-Saxons to the Romantics. Through reading and writing, students are expected to achieve a basic understanding of the historical/social/political/literary background of the assigned texts.
