A Case Study of the English Language Center :: Research Papers

A Case learn of the incline Language Center Three blocks away from the hustle of securities industry track, the main thoroughfare of Drexel Universitys campus, an unassuming building nestles in a tranquillise neighborhood. The street, lined with narrow sidewalks and trees, deed overs one a feeling of coziness and safety. other(a) than the faint sounds of city traffic, tranquility presides over this neighborhood scene. At 229 magnetic north 33rd Street stands a long, rectangular, light-colored brick building two stories high. The moo green shrubs at the edge of the building and the grassy areas spotted with trees to all side of the entrance give one the sense that this building belongs to the neighborhood. flavour up at its facade, one would not think that inside this blue structure lies a microscopic view of the world as it could be in the next millennium-a world where countries from all corners of the globe serve together in harmony, a non-politicized world where borders, political divisions separating ethnic groups, dissolve and give rise toboundaries, permeable areas that encourage the acknowledgement of and mutual respect for linguistic and cultural diversity. What is this place? Who are the inhabitants? Walking up the access move lined with black iron railings, one immediately encounters an outer screwball door inscribed with the outline of an comprehensive-shaped image encasing the letters AAIEP. Above the umbrella stand the words American Association for International English Programs (AAIEP) and underneath, English Language Center, Foreign Language Center, and ESL Writing Center. These words only pay back to frame what goes on inside this building. On the other side of the entranceway lies a safe haven--a place where people from around the globe to come together to learn English, a place where words are transform into linguistic process. But more goes on at 229 North 33rd Street than just the knowledge of English in the traditional sense of learning a language or the teaching of specific skills reading, writing, listening, and speaking. At Drexels English Language Center (ELC), students learn about American culture as well. While knowledge of vocabulary, syntax, and grammar serve to enhance ones linguistic ability, they do not necessarily promote communicative competence or the appropriate give of language in situations of everyday life. Because the rules and norms of language cannot be separated from culture, developing communicative competence enables a student to use a language for a wide range of social and expressive purposes (Schiffrin 323).