ESLLinguistics

Academic and Critical Reading and Thinking

Open Textbooks

• About Writing: A Guide

  This reference by Robin Jeffrey “condenses and covers everything a beginning writing student needs to successfully compose college-level work, including the basics of composition, grammar, and research.”
• Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research
  “Choosing & Using Sources presents a process for academic research and writing, from formulating your research question to selecting good information and using it effectively in your research assignments. Additional chapters cover understanding types of sources, searching for information, and avoiding plagiarism. Each chapter includes self-quizzes and activities to reinforce core concepts and help you apply them.”
• A Concise Introduction to Logic
  “A Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic.”
• Critical Thinking in Academic Research
  “Critical Thinking in Academic Research will introduce students to the techniques and principles of critical thinking. […] In order for students to develop their own arguments, they need to find supporting evidence. This text provides guidance on developing research questions and finding resources to answer the questions.”
• Critical Thinking: Primary Concepts
  “This short, free, Creative Commons–licensed text” by James DiGiovanna of John Jay College is “useful for a brief (maybe 3 week?) critical thinking section in any intro philosophy or composition course.”
• Fundamental Methods of Logic Book
  “Fundamental Methods of Logic is suitable for a one-semester introduction to logic/critical reasoning course.”
• Languages and Worldview
  “Asking and answering questions about what culture entails and examines the fundamental properties and intertwining nature of language and culture. This text explores linguistic relativity, lexical differences among languages and intercultural communication, including high and low contexts.”
• Logical Reasoning
  By Bradley H. Dowden from California State University Sacramento’s philosophy department, this open textbook on logical reasoning includes exercises at the end of each chapter and a glossary.
• The Process of Research Writing
  This open book by Steven Krause, Eastern Michigan University, focuses on academic work as a process in which critical thinking, research, and writing are intertwined.
• Rhetoric & Composition
  This open textbook from Bay College designed for an introductory English course.
• A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading
  “Offering a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction by focusing on reading and writing, A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading supports students as they become more reflective, deliberate, and mindful readers and writers by working within a metacognitive framework.” This guide by Ellen C. Carillo, University of Connecticut, is based on her scholarly work in this area.
• Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence
  By Amy Guptill, “Writing in College is designed for students who have largely mastered high-school level conventions of formal academic writing and are now moving beyond the five-paragraph essay to more advanced engagement with text. It is well suited to composition courses or first-year seminars and valuable as a supplemental or recommended text in other writing-intensive classes. It provides a friendly, down-to-earth introduction to professors’ goals and expectations, demystifying the norms of the academy and how they shape college writing assignments.”
• Writing for Success – 1st Canadian H5P Edition
  “Writing for Success is a text that provides instruction in steps, builds writing, reading, and critical thinking, and combines comprehensive grammar review with an introduction to paragraph writing and composition.” This edition includes interactive H5P activities; an earlier edition is available without the activities.

Additional OER

• ART of Reading
  Module on critical reading for college students by Joyce Leung and Donna McGee Thompson with materials and checklists focused on processes helpful before, during, and after reading.
• Basic Reading and Writing Course (Lumen Learning)
• Excelsior College Online Reading Lab
  Open access lab for college-level reading with resources to help students explore and engage with texts.

Zero-Cost Resources

• Illustrated Grammar and English Language Videos
  “Videos made for Mental Floss (http://mentalfloss.com/) from Arika Okrent (https://twitter.com/arikaokrent) and Sean O’Neill (http://rocketrobinson.com/).”

English as a Second Language (ESL)

Open Textbooks

• In the Community: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook (NorQuest College)
  English language textbook designed to help ELL students develop communication skills in their communities and other places of social interaction, with a focus on listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
• In the Workplace: An Intermediate Integrated Skills Textbook (Bow Valley College)
  English language textbook designed to help ELL students develop communication skills in the workplace with a focus on listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
• PDX Journeys: Studying and Living in the US, Low-Intermediate Novel and Textbook for University ESL Students
  “Each unit begins with a chapter of fiction about a teacher and students in one ESL class. Reading comprehension and reading skills exercises follow. Prefix and suffix vocabulary-focus exercises are included. Academic Word List vocabulary exercises help students build a strong foundation in both receptive and productive knowledge.”
• Read Faster, Understand More (OpenOregon)
  From 2019 this source compiled by Timothy Krause from Portland Community College includes presentation slides as well as both a student and teacher version of the textbook. It is subtitled “Advanced Academic Reading Skills for English Language Learners.” Licensed as CC BY-NC-SA.

Additional OER

• ESL Blues
  Collection of ESL grammar and reading materials including animated grammar tutorials, grammar troubleshooting, and readings with vocabulary quizzes. Graded activities for pre-intermediate, intermediate, and high intermediate ESL learners.
• ESOL Resources from Portland Community College
  A variety of materials including lesson plans, activities, course websites, and more.

Zero-Cost Resources

• ESL Flow
  “Searchable source of thematically-based ESL lessons in grammar, speaking, vocabulary, pronunciation, and reading. Patterned on a flowchart model, the site offers three levels of activities for elementary through intermediate learners. Pages include dialogue exercises, picture-based activities, resource sections and links.” – Merlot II
• Resources from The Purdue OWL
  Zero-cost resources for both students and instructors of ESL.
• Videos from Prof. Myhren of Saddleback College in CA
  CC-BY licensed short videos available through YouTube. Each short video addresses common difficulties for English-language learners such as “Whose or Who’s?” and “Looking for Subjects and Verbs.

Linguistics

• Essentials of Linguistics
  “This Open Educational Resource (OER) brings together Open Access content from around the web and enhances it with dynamic video lectures about the core areas of theoretical linguistics (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics), supplemented with discussion of psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic findings.” Please note this text is tailored to Canadian English.