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The University of Michigan English Language Institute has experimented successfully with offering extra-curricular mini-courses for students of English as a second language. The courses provide an optional activity in which the exposure to English is through a real situation in learning subject matter. After several successful attempts, and some not so successful, the faculty isolated the factors to be considered in planning such a supplementary program. These factors include: (1) Courses should be offered at a time in the semester when a psychological break is needed, and when it will not interfere with the students' regular academic work: (2) A subject matter should be found that the teacher enjoys and that the students are not likely to have been exposed to: (3) The actual material to be read or discussed should be carefully chosen. It is advisable to use something simple and authentic; (4) Audio-visual aids should be used to make the course more appealing; (5) A series of three or four lectures in one week seems to constitute the right length for the course; (6) Not much, if any, outside work should be required, and students ought not to be forced to participate if they do not want to; and (7) Each lecture should be self-contained. Subject-matter possibilities for mini-courses are unlimited: what is important is the rewarding feeling of a shared interest or experience and a realization that English can be vehicle for real communication. (HW)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert