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ESL Faculty Guide: Using the Collection

An overview of Shoreline library's ESL collection, as well as other ESL classes and online lessons available for students.

Use the Library Collection to Support English Language Instruction

Leveled Reader Baskets

The library offers leveled readers as well as children's and young adult literature in English so that students can reap the benefits of reading for pleasure and instructors can incorporate extensive reading into their classrooms.

The ESL collection includes baskets of short novels organized by level for browsing: 

  • Orange: readers with 0 to 400 headwords and picture books
  • Green: readers with 401 to 1000 headwords and children's books
  • Pink: readers with 1001 to 1700 headwords and children's chapter books
  • Blue: readers with 1701 headwords and up as well as young adult fiction

If you're wondering whether and how to incorporate the readers into your classroom, check out the April 2015 issue of Reading in a Foreign Language. Scroll down to the discussion forum "What Constitutes Extensive Reading?"

Typical books:

The ESL Collection

The ESL Collection in the Ray Howard Library includes: 

  • Reference materials, including student dictionaries and picture dictionaries
  • Short, engaging leveled readers
  • Children's and young adult literature
  • Biographies written at an accessible level
  • Books on the English language (grammar, pronunciation, etc.)
  • Prep books for the IELTS, TOEFL, and USCIS Naturalization tests 
  • Life skills ESL books

New Books

Request a Book for the ESL Collection

Email the owner of this guide, or use the online form.

Test Prep Books

Magazines

Magazines

Read magazines to learn about American popular culture. They are in the Periodicals section, in the very back of the library. You'll find magazine titles like National Geographic, Vanity Fair, and Sports Illustrated. Also located in periodicals are newspapers like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and China Daily.

periodical section of the library

Periodicals section at the back of the library.

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