English for Academic Puporses Level 6 These paper topic suggestions

[Diego Zelaya]

Hey guys,
I am currently a new instructor at a college teaching ESL. I am currently working on a course packet for students with the overall objective of them writing a thesis paper at the end of the session. I am currently trying to find a topic that ESL students can write about in a thesis paper, as if they are a graduate student at a college. This topic would need to have an abundant amount of papers that students can read. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

 

[Tdol]

What subject areas are they studying?

 

[Skrej]

Another thing to consider is their level of English - what you describe sounds like a project for very advanced ESL students.

You could do some brainstorming with them in class to generate a list of ideas.

Politics and religion are usually easy to write about, because everyone has an opinion, but they're problematic if there's going to be group discussion about them.

I've given students writing prompts on things such as retelling a folk story, or mythological tale from their culture (you can narrow this down if you wish by specific it should be a love story, or ghost story, etc. )

Unless they are very advanced, I've found that it actually helps to limit the scope and be very specific. Then if you get a more advanced student who has an idea outside of the scope, let them go with it, while providing focus for those who need it.