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About Our Programs

General Program Details

The Intensive English Language Program (IELP) at UNC serves students who have been admitted to the university and who have a language other than English as their first language. The IELP provides instruction to help students with academic English, effective study strategies, and integration into the University of Northern Colorado academic community, in order to facilitate academic success.

There are TWO TRACKS in the Intensive English Language Program

Track 1 : Full-Time English Study

• Students are not required to be accepted into a UNC degree program in order to take this coursework.
• Sixteen credits of English language instruction is required per semester.
• Placement within the Intensive English Language Program are made from the student's scores on the Academic English Assessment, which is given at UNC once the student arrives. A TOEFL is preferred, but not required.

Track 2 : The English Language Bridge Program

• In order to qualify for this program, a student must already be accepted into a degree program at UNC.
• Students may take 2-14 credits of Intensive English coursework in the Bridge program.
• The number of credits toward the degree program varies depending on the student's situation.

Voluntary Registration:

It is also possible for international students to voluntarily register for any of the courses listed in the Intensive English Language Program. None of the requirements given above apply to students taking these courses on a part-time voluntary basis.

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.

Skills Courses

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

There are six Elective courses that are now an integral part of the Intensive English Language Program at the University of Northern Colorado. Electives are required for all students in the Intensive English Language Program, but if students believe that they already have the skills being taught in the Elective course, they may take the Elective Competency Exam for that course. If the student achieves at least an 80% on the Competenecy Exam, they will not be required to take that Elective. Electives are ONE (1) credit and will never require homework outside of class. However, in-class work will be graded and at least an 80% is required, or students will be required to repeat the Elective.

Required for Levels I, II, and III:

1. CIE 025: English Pronunciation (1 credit)
   a. Individualized instruction - use of "Pronunciation Power" software
   b. Phonics for lower-level students

2. CIE 035: Skills for succeeding in an American university (1 credit)
   a. Cultural differences and expectations in the classrooms
   b. Study skills - time management
   c. The importance of homework: What kind of impression are you making on your teachers?    d. The motivation factor: Your expectations vs. faculty expectations
   e. Indirect, self-discovery techniques for catching and correcting your own errors
   f. Use of native language concepts - contrastive rhetoric

3. CIE 045: Computer Skills (Microsoft Word and PowerPoint) (1 credit)
   a. Basic formatting skills
       i. Academic expectations: 1 in. margins, double-spacings, headings, etc.
   b. Font, paragraph and document formatting
   c. Slide creation, appropriate amount of text, balance of text and graphics, etc.

Required for Levels IV, V, and VI:

4. CIE 055: Academic Vocabulary (1 credit)
   a. Academic word list
   b. Focused practice on the most commonly used words in academic settings - mastery of
        these words increases overall comprehension of both lectures and reading material

5. CIE 065: Business English (1 credit)
   a. Examples of plagiarism
   b. Lots of practice with paraphrasing
   c. Lots of practice with APA & MLA formatting
   d. Understanding the needs of your academic department

6. CIE 075:Communicating Between Cultures (1 credit)

If Electives are not required of a student, that student is free to take any of the Elective courses voluntarily.