This week at EC Fredonia, students experienced a plethora of approaches to learning English in a collegiate setting.  On Monday, many gathered to observe the Memorial Day holiday and attend related festivities.  Tuesday, students used their senses to predict and speculate about texts.  They wrote arguments, gave their opinions and explored the library’s newspaper archives. Professional Development courses were also attended by EC students who experienced computer tutorials by a certified instructor.  These students will leave EC with a certificate in their area of PDC as an added bonus to their EC certificate!  Students also studied sociology this week and got an in-depth look at the traditions of Amish culture.  English learners are encouraged to explore the rich culture of the SUNY Fredonia area and visit an Amish community to learn more!  Excursions are often organized by the international department and are open to all students.  

Students at EC Fredonia took advantage of the community resources this week at the Darwin R. Barker Public Library.  While studying a unit on English idioms, students took ownership of their learning by creating a bulletin board to highlight their work!  Teacher Sandra Maggio led the students through unpacking English colloquialisms.  Students investigated the reasons behind the sayings and discussed idioms from their own countries.  Our wonderful EC teachers are always finding ways to draw students in and engage them through personal experiences.  The unit on idioms culminated with a trip to the local library to put their hard work on display.  Each student brought an idiom to put on the brightly colored bulletin board for the community to enjoy.  Kudos to Sandra for involving our students in the community!   Also this week, students discussed the purpose of Memorial Day and discussed why the United States has so many military holidays.  Students were surprised to learn we will observe a day off school on Memorial Day!  We learned about patriotism and how that can be expressed in many different ways.  Many of our English learners shared stories about family members or friends in the service forging cultural connections between countries.  We are so proud of all soldiers here and abroad!    

This week at EC students experienced how to learn English through science.  We discussed the geology of the Great Lakes Region where we are located by studying ice age maps and real specimens.  One of the first things our students see when they arrive in WNY is beautiful lake Erie- they often ask if it is an ocean!  This makes for a great opportunity for English conversation about how these vast lakes formed.  Students are surprised that lake Erie was the result of glaciers from the last ice age because most come from regions that never experienced this. Yesterday, students studied fossil specimens from lake Erie and made inferences about the forces of nature that caused them.  They identified aquatic fossils of plants and animals and formed hypotheses about how and why these imprints where left.  The students used a combination of text clues and schema to present their fossil inferences to the class.  They were most impressed by the scoring of rocks by glaciers and how fossil-rich the Lake Erie shoreline is.  One student from China said she was never interested in geology before studying the subject here at EC.  Fantastic way to feature our region, practice academic English and support science skills! https://www.ecenglish.com/en/school-locations/usa/learn-english-at-suny-fredonia/english-courses/english-for-academic-purposes