By David Penner, English Instructor - Academic Bridge Program, Zayed University, Dubai, UAE - David.Penner@zu.ac.ae

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics (TESL) - Brock University, Canada - August, 2009

This paper outlines a strategy-based, twelve-week reading English for general academic preparation (REGAP) curriculum for students of English as an additional language (EAL) planning to enroll in all types of English-medium undergraduate classes. After considering a rationale for implementing a strategy-based REGAP curriculum, a target-situation analysis is conducted and the curriculum is presented in the form of curricular elements, course-level and text-level strategies, and a curriculum evaluation. Curricular elements include goals and objectives, needs assessments, course texts and materials, and formative and summative assessments. Course-level strategies include implementing extensive reading (ER) and building vocabulary from Coxhead’s (2000) Academic Word List (AWL). Text-level strategies include the pre-reading strategies of activating schema, previewing, predicting, reading with a purpose, adopting an alignment, and others, the while-reading strategies of comprehension monitoring and questioning, lexical inferencing, reading for meaning, visualizing with graphic organisers (GOs), note-taking and marking text, and others, and the post-reading strategies of summarising, verifying and revising, sharing responses, as well as others. Following a concluding discussion, a twelve-week course outline in table format is presented, with each week incorporating curricular elements, content to apply new strategies, reviews of previous weeks’ learning, extensive reading, and AWL vocabulary. Finally, a sample week of lesson plans demonstrates how teachers may meaningfully combine all parts of the curriculum in order to meet daily goals and objectives. It is my intention that a curriculum such as this could be implemented into a university or college EAP program comprised of non-integrated courses such as reading, writing, speaking, listening, and grammar.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Rationale for a Strategy-based Reading Curriculum
Long-standing Models of Reading and Strategy Instruction
A Growing History of Support for Strategy-based Instruction
Reading Needs Target-situation Analysis
The Strategy-based REGAP Curriculum
Curricular Elements
Goals and objectives
Needs assessments
Course texts and materials
Formative and summative assessments
Reading Strategies
Course-level reading strategies
Implementing extensive reading
Building academic vocabulary
Text-level reading strategies
Pre-reading strategies
While-reading strategies
Post-reading strategies
Curriculum Evaluation
Concluding Discussion
Sample Twelve-week Outline for a Strategies-based REGAP Curriculum
Sample One-week Plan – 5 One-hour Classes
References
Appendices

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