ESL Programs (543-6243): The ESL department offers a wide variety of English courses. Call or visit for more information. (Charge for courses except English 102, the course for international teaching assistants).
FIUTS (543-0735): Offers a weekly conversation class - they also provide English classes which are held in student family housing (participants are usually spouses of students rather than students themselves). Wednesday lunches provide an opportunity for informal conversation with native speakers of English as do FIUTS-sponsored field trips. FIUTS also has a host family program that can enable you to make friends and practice English at the same time.(No charge).
Tutors and conversation partners: Both ESL and FIUTS have a list of native-speaking English tutors and conversation partners; some of these charge money and some do not. The English department graduate office (543-6077) also has a list of graduate students in English who are willing to tutor - usually in writing - for a fee. You can also put up a notice offering to exchange conversation in your native language for English conversation on some of the many open bulletin boards around campus. (May or may not charge).
The Language Learning Center (545-9403): Has a wide variety of English materials that you may use in the lab. They also have language lab facilities which you may use for listening and pronunciation practice. (No charge).
Odegaard Undergraduate Library (543-1947): Has a number of videotapes and videotaped TV shows that you may watch in the library. They also have a small collection of ESL books and resources. (No charge).
Department of Speech and Hearing Science (545-7400): Offers a course called "The American English Sound System" which focuses on English pronunciation. (Charges function similarly to other University of Washington courses).
UW Professional & Organizational Development (543-5970): Offers courses in Business Writing and Business Communication for non-native speakers of English- open only to those employed by the university (which includes TAs and RAs). Though the general focus is business, the instructor adjusts the course according to the particular needs of each individual class. (Charges a fee).
Communty Organizations: A number of community centers, social groups, and religious organizations offer ESL classes as well as a range of services, activities, and special trips for international students. For more information, you can contact individual organizations or ask other friends what they are aware of.
King County Library System: Seattle's public libraries have English materials , including audiotapes, which you can check out. At the library, ask a librarian about getting a library card and ESL materials. If the first library branch you go to doesn't seem to have a very large collection of ESL books, you might ask the librarian to recommend to you a nearby branch that might have a larger collection. Many libraries also have audiotapes of books being read aloud which are used by blind native speakers of English. You might find them useful for practicing your listening comprehension. (A few libraries also hold English conversation classes).
Ask for help.
Don't be shy about asking friends and colleagues:
- if you don't understand something
- if you want them to help you pronounce something correctly
- if you don't quite know how to say the right thing in a given situation.
Requests for help that don't take a lot of time are fine. An example of a request that might not be appropriate (unless you are very close to the person or know the person loves to help you) would be to hand someone a 20 page paper and ask him/her to correct the English.
Pay attention to your friends' and colleagues' use of language
As you're listening to a friend or colleague speak, notice how he or she phrases things, pronounces things, and what vocabulary he or she uses. You might keep a little notebook handy to write down some of the things you pick up as you talk informally with your friend.
Another idea (with your friend's permission) is to turn a tape recorder on while you and your friend are talking informally. Later you can go back and listen to the vocabulary and pronunciation that your friend used. You can also use a tape recorder in the classroom (with the professor's permission) and re-play lectures to get a sense of the ways English is used in your discipline.
(Note: You will not get a very good recording unless you sit quite close to the professor and have a relatively good microphone on your tape recorder).
Technology at home
TV and radio. The TV or radio can be a good source for listening practice, for gathering common idiomatic expressions , for practicing English rhythm and intonation through "echoing". You can audiotape a TV or radio program and then re-listen to it.
Caption decoder. A number of TV programs are arranged so that if a special device, the caption decoder, is attached to the TV, an English script for the program appears at the bottom of the screen. Most newer TVs have built in caption decoders. Some people find this very helpful for improving their listening ability. TV programs that provide captioning are marked with a CC on the newspaper TV schedule.
VCR. Having a VCR enables you to re-listen to a movie or TV show so that it is easier for you to take notes on the language used and improve your listening comprehension. It also enables you to play back parts of a tape you don't understand so that friends whose English might be a little more advanced than yours can explain them for you.
Tape recorder. A tape recorder is perhaps the most useful of all of these items. You can record either TV or radio programs or live speech and make use of the recordings in the same way that you would make use of video recordings. You can also buy or borrow language tapes and listen to them on the recorder. Finally, you can use the recorder to record your own voice - as you listen to yourself or ask others to listen to you, you can discover areas where you need to improve.
