Course Description Table: Seven-Level Program

Level I: Low-Basic Coursework

Level II: High-Basic Coursework

Level III: Low-Intermediate Coursework

Level IV: High-Intermediate Coursework

Level V: Low Advanced Coursework

Level VI: High-Advanced Coursework

Level VII: Graduate Students Only

Independent Study Options

Course Details: Seven-Level Program

Level I: Low-Basic Coursework 

CIE 026: Low-Basic Speaking/Listening (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus includes: speaking in social academic settings, introductions, using proper pronunciation, asking for and offering clarification while communicating, appropriate rate and volume for clear communication, and confidence while speaking.

CIE 027: Low-Basic Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is the sentence level of a paragraph, which includes the basic structure of a sentence, connecting words, the use of capital letters, end punctuation, and the difference between simple and complex sentences.

CIE 028: Low-Basic Grammar (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: understanding basic English grammar beginning with the verb form of “be” in the present and past tense. In addition, students will study pronouns, nouns, adjectives, and the present tense of verbs.

CIE 029: Low-Basic Reading and Vocabulary (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: learning new vocabulary for academic use and basic reading strategies. Students will learn roots, affixes, and inflected forms of words, collocations, topics, main ideas, and supporting details

Level II: High-Basic Coursework

CIE 036 - High-Basic Speaking/Listening (2 credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: learning to differentiate between statements and questions, fact and opinion, identifying main ideas, listening for a speaker’s point of view, and note-taking techniques for academic classes.

CIE 037 - High-Basic Writing (2 credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: the paragraph level of writing. This includes the steps of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, and revising, organizational patterns, such as chronological and spatial order, transition signals and description.

CIE 038 - High-Basic Grammar (2 credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: the present tense of verbs, past tense, future tense, pronouns, including demonstratives, regular and irregular verbs, count and non-count nouns and prepositions.

CIE 039 - High-Basic Reading and Vocabulary (2 credits)
Course Length : 8 weeks
Course Description: Primary focus is: learning new vocabulary, focusing on contextual clues, reading skills like previewing, predicting, skimming, and scanning, sequencing ideas and demonstrating ability to differentiate between fact and opinion.

Level III: Low-Intermediate Coursework

CIE 046: Low-Intermediate Speaking/Listening (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will be able to define and use new vocabulary, discuss main ideas, details and examples related lectures, and identify chronology, process, and classify/define. Also, students will take notes, work on pronunciation and presentation skills.

CIE 047: Low-Intermediate Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn: the writing process, finding and narrowing topic, pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, narration, support, order, description, capitalization, commas, quotation marks, and compare/contrast.

CIE 048: Low-Intermediate Grammar(2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will show competency with: nouns and quantifiers, articles, prepositional phrases, “Wh” questions, gerunds, linking verbs, adjectives, adverbs, independent & dependent clauses, future time clauses, simple, compound, & complex sentences.

CIE 049: Low-Intermediate Reading/Vocabulary (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn: new vocabulary, main ideas, specific information & facts using outside resources & direct quotes, identification of author’s position or opinion, drawing conclusions and making comparisons.

Level IV: High-Intermediate Coursework 

CIE 056: High-Intermediate Speaking/Listening (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn note taking skills, incorporate rhetorical cues, use outlining skills to organize lecture notes, make generalizations, recognize new vocabulary from content lectures & practice pronunciation.

CIE 057: High-Intermediate Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn: writing a complete plan for essays, coordination and subordination, titles, introductions, conclusions, finding & correcting fragments and run-ons, revising, editing, cause/effect & compare/contrast rhetorical styles.

CIE 058: High-Intermediate Grammar (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn: verb tenses, stative/condition verbs, present perfect progressive and present perfect, infinitives after certain verbs, gerunds and infinitives, and modals.

CIE 059: High-Intermediate Reading and Vocabulary (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will be able to: identify chapter headings and subheadings, differentiate between fact and opinion, statement of position, identify main ideas and specific information, make inferences, determine position, & learn new vocabulary.

Level V: Low-Advanced Coursework 

CIE 066: Low-Advanced Speaking/Listening (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will continue to better understand academic lectures, give oral presentations, demonstrate the ability to speak spontaneously, use PowerPoint, participate in a group presentation based on interviews and improve pronunciation.

CIE 067: Low-Advanced Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will produce well-organized paragraphs and essays using academic vocabulary, unity, & coherence. They will write an analytical process-analysis essay as well as several summaries of academic journal articles.

CIE 068: Low-Advanced Grammar (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will prove competency with present perfect, past perfect, present perfect progressive, avoiding sentence fragments, negative Yes/No Questions and Tag questions, Too, Neither, Not either, avoiding repetition with addition connectors.

CIE 069: Low-Advanced Reading/Vocabulary (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will improve their ability to effectively comprehend academic texts, understand vocabulary from context and expand their knowledge of academic vocabulary, and use reading strategies such as previewing and predicting.

Level VI: High-Advanced Coursework 

CIE 076: High-Advanced Speaking/Listening (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will recognize lecture cues, use context and prediction to understand main ideas, synthesize and summarize information from listening selections, give a summary/analysis presentation & debate and work on pronunciation.

CIE 077: High-Advanced Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will learn to use supporting information in the form of quotations, statistics, summary, paraphrase and in-text citation. They will use consistent point-of-view and number agreement in extended definition and argumentation essays.

CIE 078: High-Advanced Grammar (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will demonstrate competency with: adjective clauses, modals and similar expressions, speculations and conclusions about the past, nouns and articles, direct and indirect speech, and sentence connectors.

CIE 079: High-Advanced Reading/Vocabulary (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will be able to demonstrate point of view, effective summaries, critical evaluation of online sources. They will continue to expand their knowledge of academic vocabulary in their specific disciplines.

Level VII: Graduate Students Only

CIE 086: Grad Oral Presentation (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will demonstrate competency in their ability to compile and present research-based information in oral presentations. They will identify and improve pronunciation errors, think critically, and use high-level academic vocabulary.

CIE 087: Grad Research Writing (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: Students will demonstrate competency in: ability to compose a problem-solution research paper with title page, headings, in-text citation, end-of-text citation, paraphrases, direct quotes, reporting verbs, and relevant & convincing academic research.

Required Skills Courses for Levels 1, 2, and 3

CIE 065: Business English (2 Credits)
Course Length: 8 weeks
Course Description: This course has been created to provide additional instruction for students preparing to enter the Business school, with specific focus on the vocabulary and conceptual knowledge necessary to be successful in that field of study.

Required Skills Courses for Levels I, II, and III:

1. CIE 025: English Pronunciation (1 credit - $300)
Uses clear speech from the Start and focuses on correct pronunciation of phonemes as well as overall fluency in English.

2. CIE 045: Computer Skills (1 credit - $300)
Microsoft Word formatting requirements expected of US students. Microsoft PowerPoint skills taught for success with oral presentations.

3. CIE 055: Academic Vocabulary (1 credit - $300)
Use Lower levels of the Academic Word list. Practice with form, meaning and use of new vocabulary in a variety of academic contexts.

Required for Levels IV, V, and VI:

4. CIE 095: Academic Vocabulary II (1 credit - $300)
Practice with high level academic content area vocabulary from the fields of Education, Business, economics, Psychology, History, Political Science, and Information Science and Technology.

5. CIE 075: Communication Between Cultures (2 credits - $600)
. The purpose of this course if to create a true Bridge between the Intensive English Program and the students' degree coursework. Students use a regular academic textbook and learn about how quickly academic courses move during a semester. They also learn about the criticial thinking skills that are expected in class discussions.
. Students work on a collaborative project with COMM 223 students and write refelctive/analysis papers from these experiences. These experiences are ;meant to help students have realistic expectations regarding the level and rigor of degree coursework. Finally, these experiences provide excellent opportunity to elarn about all 4 differenct communicative competencies that are required for success in the academic discourse community.

Optional Skills Courses for Level 6 and Bridge Level:

6. CIE 065: Business English (1 credit - $300)
This course has been created to provide additional instruction for students preparing to enter the Business school, with spec ific focus on the vocabulary and conceptual knowledge necessary to be successful in this area. Format includes a high level of class discussions requiring the use of critical thinking skills.

7. CIE 085:TOEFL iBT Preparation (1 credit - $300)
This course prepares students to be successful on the TOEFL iBT.

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Contact Person: Sue Kovitz
Last Updated: September 14, 2009
All photos courtesy of
Center for International Education staff and students.