2014 SYLLABUS School・Dept.

SLADE
Class type Practical

Course Title: Academic Reading I Instructor: Donovan Clarke - Time Offered Spring

Beccy Jackson Years Offered 1

License・Qualification: Credit 1
Req./Elective Required

Overview and Methods:

A. Course Description: Academic Reading I (ARI) is a required course for all 1st year students. The aim of this
course is to develop students' reading speed and comprehension. In this class, students will work on building their
reading fluency. Reading fluency is a combination of reading comprehension and reading speed. Students will
also use the Learning English Vocabulary textbook to study vocabulary so that by the end of the year they will
know the 1000 most frequently used words in English.

B. General Approach: Each week students will do a variety of exercises to improve their reading skills. Reading
passages from the Cross-Cultural Studies class will be used as intensive reading. Intensive reading is when you
read passages that are a little difficult for you to help you build your language awareness and skills. The class will
be focusing on exercises that will help develop reading strategies, such as skimming and scanning. Reading
strategies help students read faster and understand more of what they read.
To help students read faster, they will practice timed reading. Each week students will read passages from their
Reading for Speed and Fluency 1 textbook. Timed reading is when students read passages that are easy for them to
read and they read them in as short of time as they can. They should read them quickly and understand them well.
Reading easy English is very useful because while students read, they see a lot of vocabulary and grammar in
context. Over time, this will naturally build the students' ability to use correct English and improve their English
skills.
C. Relationship with Other Courses: This course is coordinated with Academic Listening I and Cross Cultural
Studies I. Most of the topic read about in this class will also be covered in the same or following week in
Academic Listening I and Cross Cultural Studies I. Our goal is to make the materials easier and more beneficial
by recycling through these classes.

Goals/Objective of Course: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to….
a. Read more fluently: by the end of this course students should see improvement in their reading speed and their
understand when reading.
b. Greatly increase their vocabulary: students will know not just the first 1000 words and their meaning, but also such
things as syllable patterns, part of speech and word family for each of the words.
c. Understand challenging texts: students should know basic reading and vocabulary skills and strategies so that they
know how to begin reading and understanding text that would have been too difficult for them before.
d. Reflect on their learning: students will write monthly reflections during the semester to better understand their
learning.
Study Requirements: Students need to read the weekly reading text many times and do as much reading outside of
class as they can. Students need to actively try to learn and use the vocabulary words in and outside of class.
Attendance is vital. Students need to express themselves actively to participate in class and write monthly reflections.
Evaluation Methods:
A. Policies: 1. Come to class on time. As students cannot participate if they are absent or late, participation
depends in part on being in class.
2. Be prepared for class. Have your homework finished before coming to class. Homework will be checked in
each class.
3. Students are responsible for any work they miss due to an absence. Late assignments will be accepted with a
penalty of 50% unless the instructor otherwise accepts the reason for the lateness.
4. Missed quizzes may not be retaken unless the absence was excused or with permission from the coordinator.

B. Reflection and Feedback: Students will be asked to reflect monthly on the content of the class. They will, in
theory, be given time in each class to write notes for their monthly class reflection.

C. Course Requirements (Major Assignments, Quizzes & Exams including Dates)

In order to be successful in this course, students will need to complete the following:
1. Participate in class well 15%
2. Pass weekly vocabulary quizzes 30%
3. Pass reading assessments 20%
4. Homework 35%
HW: weekly reading strategies (15%); RRP and RSF (5%); Monthly class reflection (10%) vocabulary exercise (5%)
Textbooks: Learning English Vocabulary by David Barker
Reading for Speed and Fluency 1 by Paul Nation and Casey Malarcher
Other Course Materials: Other materials will be provided by the teacher
Other: (Course prerequisites, Advice to students, Contact information)
There are no prerequisites for this course. The coordinator for Academic Reading I is Donovan Clarke. His office is
7308. His e-mail is clarke@ohkagakuen-u.ac.jp

Weekly Schedule
1 Introduction of course, syllabus and materials
2 Vocabulary quiz (words 1-75); Reading strategies and skills (predicting the topic)
3 Vocabulary quiz (76-125); Reading strategies and skills (finding main ideas)
4 Vocabulary quiz (126-200); Reading strategies and skills (skimming for main ideas)
5 Vocabulary quiz (201-250); Reading strategies and skills (finding meaning from context)
6 Vocabulary quiz (251-300); Reading strategies and skills (scanning)
7 Vocabulary quiz (301-350); Review and reading assessment
8 Vocabulary quiz (351-375); Reading strategies and skills (summarizing)
9 Vocabulary quiz (376-400); Reading strategies and skills (finding main ideas)
10 Vocabulary quiz (401-425); Reading strategies and skills (predicting, skimming and finding main ideas)
11 Vocabulary quiz (426-450); Reading strategies and skills (summarizing)
12 Vocabulary quiz (451-475); Reading strategies and skills (meaning from context, scanning and summarizing)
13 Vocabulary quiz (476-500); Reading strategies and skills (predicting, skimming and finding main ideas
14 Vocabulary quiz (501-525); Reading strategies and skills (meaning from context, scanning and summarizing)
15 Review and reading assessment - summer HW (vocabulary words 526-625)