A Few Items of Interest

1. UCSD will be hosting a book fair next Monday, 12/3, from 10 to noon. The coordinator there has opened up the event to “the locals.” See the flyer here. This might be a great opportunity to check out your textbooks for summer.
2. The English Language (EL) Fellow Program fosters mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries by sending talented, highly qualified U.S. educators in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) on ten-month fellowships to overseas academic institutions in all regions of the world. See details here.
3. If you or someone you know would like to teach English in China with a team of professionals for five months (or longer), there may just be an opportunity for you now. For more specific information about the China program and the application, please visit the "Other Opportunities" page of the Fulbright Teacher Exchange Program website here. Just scroll down to the bottom for the China program.

Our Roots and Our Commitments

Our History

As early as 1967, our college offered English for foreign-born Spanish-speaking students one night a week at Pauma School, in Escondido at Central School and Escondido High, at Vista High, and at Fallbrook High. At Palomar College itself, a class for the foreign-born was offered for speakers of all languages one night a week. The present-day ESL Dept. has its origin in the Bilingual Education Dept. In the summer of 1969, Palomar College Bilingual Center was initiated as a community outreach program designed to meet the needs of 13 Spanish-speaking mothers enrolled in ESL. The mothers had requested an intensive summer course, meeting four hours daily, four days a week. Classes were offered without credit. The ESL classes, open to all adults, were continued in this design in 1968-70 and thereafter. Spanish as a Second Language (SSL) was added in 1970-71 for English-speaking parents whose children were in the elementary bilingual program, business and professional persons, retired persons, and other adults. The Bilingual Education Dept. was reorganized in the spring of 1984 with the Spanish courses for English speakers absorbed by the Foreign Language Dept. The Dept. voted to change its name from the Bilingual Education Dept. to English as a Second Language Dept. in February 1984, with the Governing Board approval in the spring of 1985. Regardless of what it has been called, our dept. has been an integral part of our college for 40 years!

Our Mission Statement

Our mission is to equip students whose second language is English with the language and cultural proficiencies required for the eventual fulfillment of personal, vocational, academic, and citizenship goals so that they may participate fully in American society. We provide ESL students with the ability to use English that is accurate and appropriate in a variety of academic and nonacademic settings. We also provide learning environments that foster low anxiety levels, thus enhancing the development of language fluency and self-esteem of the learners. By integrating language acquisition with relevant life experiences, we stress the importance of critical thinking, problem solving, and self-sufficiency.

Our Vision Statement

Our vision is that all English language learners have the skills to be successful in achieving their academic, vocational and personal goals.

Our Tag Line

creating paths for a better tomorrow

Contract Instructors' Team-Building Commitment

We acknowledge that diversity and dedication can create one harmonious sound; therefore, we are committed to doing the following:

1. Trusting that we are all doing our best and working towards the same goal of student success, even though our approaches may be different.
2. Making others feel valued and important by treating them with respect and by letting them know that we care about them.
3. Dealing with issues that we have with others on an individual basis and in a constructive way.
4. Giving and accepting advice and criticism professionally and being willing to compromise when necessary.
5. Helping others to do their best by giving them the benefit of the doubt and making no assumptions.

Hiring Adjunct Faculty

Definition of an Opening

1. A new class that is being added to any program.
2. An opening does not occur until there are fewer instructors than classes offered in any given program.

Announcing an Opening

When there is an opening in his or her program, the program coordinator announces it by emailing all instructors, the chair, the ADA, and office staff. In fairness to all instructors, there should be no switching between programs coordinated by different people without an official announcement.

Hiring Current Adjunct

The coordinator selects an adjunct instructor who would be the most suitable for the program. However, according to the union contract, adjunct faculty who meet professional standards of performance and demonstrate a continuing commitment to the educational programs of Palomar College shall receive preferential consideration for continuing part-time assignments. Our dept. has established a preferential consideration list for each of its three disciplines (ESL, Adult Basic Ed, and Citizenship). An adjunct faculty member is added to the list when he or she has earned:

1. six or more assignment credits (one accrued for each regular semester) in a discipline within the preceding six consecutive academic years
2. a rating of "high professional performance" or "standard professional performance" on two consecutive peer evaluations (conducted once every three years).

Here are the pertinent articles in the contract:

20.10.2.1 All faculty members on the preferential consideration list for a given discipline shall have equal standing. For the purpose of assignment and scheduling, no part-time faculty member shall receive preferential consideration over a full-time faculty member.

20.10.2.2 A faculty member on the preferential consideration list shall be offered an assignment in that discipline before that assignment is offered to any person not on that list.

20.10.2.3 When two or more faculty members on the preferential consideration list are qualified for an assignment, the Department Chair/Director or Dean may select the faculty member who will be offered that assignment. This selection shall not be subject to the grievance process.

After the program coordinator makes the selection, he or she

• emails the adjunct's current coordinator to inform him or her that the adjunct will be changing to a different program
• emails the chair, the ADA, office staff, and contract instructors to tell them who is going to be changing programs, whom the person is replacing, and what level the person is going to be teaching
• email the ADA if a classroom key is needed
• provides a program orientation and copies of the books that will be used.

Hiring New Adjunct

If no current faculty members respond to the opening announcement by the specified deadline, the program coordinator looks through the new adjunct applications on file or advertises the opening to the outside world via HR web page, CATESOL Job Bank, etc.

The coordinator contacts the most qualified applicant and sets up an interview. The coordinator asks the applicant to complete an application packet and to submit it along with copies of his or her transcript to the chair, who reviews the qualifications, determines if an equivalencies letter needs to be written, checks off minimum qualifications section, and signs it. The packet and other required documents are returned to the ADA for further processing, including with HR.

Our Mottos

I thought it would be both fun and revealing to share here the mottos or favorite quotes that some of my colleagues hold dear. Please feel free to add yours.

Shayla:

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any map of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: The neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere." (Eleanor Roosevelt, from a speech delivered to the U.N. in 1958)

Lee:

(translated: "Listen more, talk less, do more.")

Nimoli:

"The heart that gives....gathers."

Lynne:

"To teach is to touch lives forever." (Anonymous)

Marty:

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson after." (Vernon Law)

Colleen:

"Accept that some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue."

Gary:

"Always look on the bright side of life." (from the movie Life of Brian) and

(Navy Motto from WW II that Gary carved on wood when he was a teenager.)