New Blog

Our department’s new blog is now located at this URL: http://ESLAtPalomar.blogspot.com/. It will also be linked from the “Staff Only” section of our dept. web site.

Have You Contributed Yet?

This blog is being retired. A new blog for our dept. is being created in time for the new school year. The new blog will continue to seek dept.-related stories, questions, and comments. By you. Stay tuned.

Part-Time Faculty Loads

Did you know that the new contract between PFF and the District has revised the language regarding part-time faculty loads?

The old contract has this article (on p. 4 of this linked file):

4.1.9 A part-time faculty member’s assignment may include day, evening and/or weekend work, and work at more than one (1) location. The assignment is determined by the Dean, or first level educational administrator to whom the faculty member reports, in consultation with the Department Chair and with reasonable input by the faculty member. There shall be no rule or arbitrary practice that prevents any part-time faculty from receiving an average of a sixty percent (60%) load. In no instance will a part-time faculty member be allowed to exceed sixty percent (60%) of a full-time teaching load during a single academic year.

The new contact, on the other hand, has Article 4.1.11, which is on p. 3 and p. 4 of this linked file. The revised language contains these critical changes:

1. No load can exceed 67% in any single semester.
   
2. Any single-semester load exceeding 60% requires a one-year temporary contract.
   
3. A load exceeding 60% in a single semester must load-average to be no more than 60% for the academic year.
   
4. Over 3 academic years, only 2 semesters can exceed 60%.

As dept. chair, I have been instructed to examine part-time faculty loads that fall into these categories and make adjustments now.

The implementation of our new contract in this regard may cause problems for both the impacted faculty and the departments that have adjunct faculty who regularly teach above 60% one semester and below 60% the next to average out at 60% for the year.

One thing that remains unclear to me is whether or not the newly passed AB 591 state legislation would necessitate a renegotiation of Article 4.1.11 of our new contract. The new state law redefines a part-time community college instructor as teaching no more than 67%, as opposed to the existing 60% threshold.

Collocations: Important But Neglected?

In my opinion and experience, even when grammar is mastered by an ESL learner, expression continues to be a challenge. How can an ESL learner express his or her ideas in a more idiomatic way? What words go with what other words in American English?

Our curriculum typically gives more attention to teaching grammar and the four language skills than to teaching collocates. What then would be an effective way to raise student awareness of English "word friends," besides correcting them one instance at a time? For example, most Spanish-speaking students use "put attention in...," translating directly from their native tongue. Is there a good way to impress upon them that saying "pay attention to" is more idiomatic than "put attention in"?

Concordance programs are basically searching tools to run through a text data base and show the KWIC (key word in context). Here's one such concordancer online: http://www.lextutor.ca/concordancers/concord_e.html. So if you have your students type "put attention" in the "keyword(s)" box and then select a corpus, say "Brown's one million words" before hitting the yellow "Get concordance" button, they will see that there is no such combination. Repeat the same for "pay attention" as keywords, and they will see at least a couple examples pop up.

A better way to have the students discover the collocates would be for them to just input "attention" as the keyword and then try to find out what verb most typically goes with "attention" in English.

There are other ways to use concordances to teach English. This article, though written to advertise an $85, good concordancer called MonoConc, provides a couple suggestions.

Another free online concordance program with three English corpora--two American and one British--is here at http://view.byu.edu/.

I know in our dept., Lynne Henson, Gary Sosa, and Tracy Fung have been using concordancers in their teaching. I would like to hear them and other colleagues share their specific methods.

San Marcos PM Teachers Held Event

The afternoon and evening teachers of San Marcos met for their annual summer potluck from 2 to 6 p.m. today at Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort, thanks to a generous arrangement by Angela, who owns a timeshare at the resort.

All but three colleagues in the two General ESL Programs were able to make it. Several brought their family members. As always, the event provided the colleagues with an opportunity to get to know each other better. With the relaxing atmosphere, the scenic location this time, and the delicious dishes everyone brought to share, a good time was had by all.

Call for Presenters

This year's San Diego Regional CATESOL Conference will be at SDSU on Sat. Oct. 18. The conference theme is "Literacy for Life." If you would like to share ideas, lessons, research, and materials for developing literacy skills, please consider presenting them at the conference. Go to http://www.catesol.org/regional.html to read more details and to submit a proposal online. The deadline for submission is Sept. 8. Summer may actually be an ideal time to get your presentation proposal ready.

Summer Salute

I always admire our students as I watch them filing into class, most freshly showered, nicely clothed, and ready to go. They give me energy. When I'm tired and feel as if I've practically had to drag myself to class, I look at them. I know they've been working all day, too. Or - worse yet - I know they have to leave my class at 9:20p and go to work! I don't know where they get their energy from, but I'm grateful they unwittingly share it with me.

Given that our students come to us in the midst of a busy schedule, juggling work and school and family and all the other responsibilities, it is no wonder to me that so many drop out. Year after year, semester after semester, I see it happen. And I never know what to do.

This summer I started with 35 students. I had a few no shows, so I added six students the first week and one this. I've had several not show up again this week. So, even though the roster is up to 40 now, there are only about 35 that I'm expecting. Of them, 5 people were absent yesterday. And five the day before.

What can I do?

On Lee's message board, he has asked us to survey our students to find out how they found us, and I think that's a great idea. Indeed, I'm (still) working on my MBA thesis built around a survey we did last summer. The research question is: How can we better reach the population of ESL students? In class, though, I have a different question: How can I keep the students who've already found us? How can I keep the students I have? I think it's the more difficult query.

For some, being in this country is a real life and death issue. We know this. Financially, I believe many are just making ends meet and often doing so by living in conditions we wouldn't consider. Emotionally, I'm sure many are simply stealing themselves to continue everyday, so far from family and friends and all they hold dear. I personally couldn't do it.

My grandmother left her home off the west coast of Africa pregnant, with three little kids, to join a husband somewhere on the west coast of America. She sailed into Boston and made the trip across country on a train with three little kids and a baby. My aunt Carol was born on the crossing. My mother was born here a few years later.

Growing up, I had no idea I was from an "immigrant" family. We lived closer to my Dad's family and they figured they were from Texas. Period. It wasn't until I was studying to become an ESL teacher that I inquired of my mother about her native language. She took me by surprise when she got upset, "I speak English!" I pushed. Your mother spoke Portuguese. That must have been your cradle language. She cut me off.

Clearly growing up in an immigrant family had not been easy for her. I'd known that somehow. Her dark skin made life in Lily White Lakewood tough. I knew that though she never spoke of it. Many great talks were to follow that initial question. And I came to know of the sacrifices.

That was then. This is now. And like every immigrant before them, our students are making sacrifices. In this case, they sacrifice to come to class four nights a week, week in and week out. So, I try to tell them how proud I am of them. I try to explain that I understand what courage it takes, what effort is required. I try.

I wish I could do more.

As talk of yet more FENCING along the border continues, I want them to know that I am glad they are here, that I wish coming here were an easier thing, and that I have faith in them. I wish we'd build more bridges and less fences because I trust them to succeed like countless before them. And on the eve of our Independence Day, I salute them.

An OHP Survey

Apparently, the Blogger poll to the right does not quite work. So here is my new try. Hope it works this time.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

A Unique Way of Looking at the World

Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization, founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and others and dedicated to promoting democracy and freedom around the world, has just published its 2008 edition of "Map of Freedom," showing which countries are free, which ones are partly free, and which are not free.

Teachers can request a free copy of the world map by emailing Katrina Neubauer at Neubauer@freedomhouse.org.

On a related note, the following quote from p. 30 of the latest issue of American Educator resonates with me for some reason, especially on the eve of this year's 4th of July celebrations:

The reason for American dominance over the last century was not because of its economic vitality. What made America the leader of the free world was that it held up a beacon of hope in the universal quest for human fulfillment.

What do you think?

Summer School 2008 Starts

Hello to each and every one of my teaching and classified colleagues.

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who has worked so hard to recruit, assess, advise, and register our summer students. We could not have done it without you! Our department is heavily dependent on the collaboration of ADA, program coordinators, program assistants, faculty, student specialists, lab personnel, and student and short-term workers in order to build classes for each session, and I truly appreciate your commitment to our department. You can be assured that your efforts have made and will continue to make a difference in the lives of the many students who have come to us for help with their English.

I would also like to thank Marty Furch, Anne Stadler, Dean McDonald, Mike Ellis, Jose Vargas, Michael Jordan, and Lee Hoffmann for making sure that our "smart classroom" project for A-12, A-13, and A-14 was completed in time for our summer school. As of today, all of the five classrooms that we "own" in the A building are each equipped with a teacher computer, a data projector, a VCR, and an audio system. (We still need a new screen for A-13, though.)

To turn on the data projector, push the "Power" button on the small plastic control panel that is mounted on the wall next to the computer. If you wish to project from the computer screen, push the "Computer" button on that control device. If you wish to use the VCR, push the "Video" button. There are also two triangular buttons for adjusting audio volumes. When you are done with the data projector at the end of your class, please remember to push the "Power" button twice to turn the projector off.

This summer at Fallbrook, there will be a group of 30 or so students sponsored by Migrant Education of the San Diego County Office of Education for the first time. I would like to thank Gary Sosa and Claudia Covarrubias as well as Patricia Wilcox of Migrant Ed for making this collaboration happen.

Speaking of Gary, in case you haven't heard, he has been appointed as one of the two Basic Skills Coordinators for the whole district with 80% release time and has been working hard with many colleagues on ways to best assist basic skills students at Palomar. Way to go, Gary!

This summer, we will be saying goodbye to Melissa Lloyd-Jones, a long-time adjunct colleague who has deservedly won a full-time position at MiraCosta College. Congratulations, Melissa!

Our own unfilled full-time position has been reopened. I look forward to some equally qualified adjunct colleagues applying for this position.

The INEA teachers held their latest meeting last Friday on the main campus. They were all enthusiastic about the updating of their teaching materials and online resources.

Preparation for the success of our summer session and beyond is important. Those who take care of a few things at the start of summer can make a positive impact on how much we can achieve by the end of the session and in the future as well. First and foremost, since the college only receives state apportionment for officially registered students, if you can add more students to your class, it will assist the college in boosting enrollment. Specifically, if your class still has openings for more students, consider taking in more eligible students such as appropriate waitlisted ones, returning ones, those transferring from another program, etc.

Secondly, I strongly advise every teacher in our dept. to get connected with their students in such a way that the students will want to show up in class day after day. As you know, for noncredit classes, which are the absolute majority of the classes we offer in summer, attendance hours are like our lifelines. This is by no means to attenuate the importance of attendance and participation as a first step to learning.

All students should be given a syllabus with clear expectations of them listed, among other things. A hard copy from each instructor is due by Friday to our ADA via program coordinators for filing purposes.

As always, with a tradition of excellence and high quality instruction in our dept., the 2008 summer school promises to become another successful session.

I hope everyone, whether teaching or not, has a great summer.

Palomar College EAP 2008

This year, our college is repeating the huge success of EAP (i.e. Palomar College Early Acceptance Program) that we started last year. High school graduates who have been assessed come to our San Marcos campus during three successive Saturdays in June for an orientation, tour, opportunity to talk to college representatives and, most importantly, priority register for their fall 2008 classes!

Our department is once again an active participant in this important annual event. Under the leadership of Anne Stadler and Jose Luis Ramirez, all of our office staff members from San Marcos and Escondido conduct our ESL-specific orientation, advisement, registration, and tours.

This year, our dept. also participates in the Department Fair as part of the Saturday events. Carol Lowther volunteered to man our ESL table on the first EAP Saturday, June 7.

Counseling Dean Lynda Halttunen, whose idea it was to start the EAP at Palomar, took and published photos to mark the events. To see the photos of the EAP Day on June 14, click here.

This year's EAP continues next Saturday, June 21.

Unfilled Full-time Position Reopens

The college reopened our unfilled full-time position on Friday. Here's the bulk of this latest position announcement:

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Teaching assignments may include day, evening, and/or weekend classes at the San Marcos campus and/or off-campus locations as part of contract responsibilities. Teaching assignments may also include distance education classes. The initial assignment is to teach English as a Second Language fifteen to twenty hours weekly, ten hours of which will be scheduled in the evenings at the Palomar College Fallbrook Site. Remaining hours will be scheduled in the day at the San Marcos campus and/or off-campus locations. Three additional hours weekly will be spent coordinating personnel, student-related activities, and curriculum at the Fallbrook Site. Participate fully in departmental activities and college governance and hold regular office hours.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Must meet one of the qualifications listed under a) through c)*:

a) Master’s degree in TESL, TESOL, applied linguistics with a TESL emphasis, linguistics with a TESL emphasis, English with a TESL emphasis, or education with a TESL emphasis.

b) Bachelor’s degree in TESL, TESOL, English with a TESL certificate, linguistics with a TESL certificate, applied linguistics with a TESL certificate, or any foreign language with a TESL certificate and Master’s degree in linguistics, applied linguistics, English, composition, bilingual/bicultural studies, reading, speech, or any foreign language.

c) A combination of education and experience that is at least the equivalent of either qualification a) or b) above. Candidates who do not possess the specific minimum qualifications as stated above, which includes degrees that have not been awarded at the time of application, are required to complete the Equivalency Qualifications Form that is included with the standard application.

2. Sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, and ethnic backgrounds in a community college.

*Note: Only coursework completed at, and degrees awarded by, accredited institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education will be considered as satisfying the Minimum Qualifications. Candidates who have earned degrees from foreign institutions are required to submit both official translations and evaluations of their transcripts that have been prepared by a certified U. S. credential review service in order for the application to be considered. Visit http://www.naces.org/ for a list of commonly-used credential review services.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

1. Three years’ experience teaching different levels and skills of ESL (including academic reading and writing) at an accredited post-secondary institution within the previous five years.
2. Competence in English sufficient to serve as a suitable linguistic model.
3. Second language competence.
4. Experience working with immigrant population, especially Spanish-speaking adult learners.
5. Experience using computer technology in an instructional setting.
6. Experience working effectively and professionally with colleagues in a collaborative, collegial environment.
7. Evidence of a strong commitment to remain current in ESL and its instructional program.
8. Leadership experience in an educational setting, such as student assessment and placement and curriculum development.
9. Commitment to a student learning-centered college.

SALARY AND BENEFITS:

1. Starting Salary Range: $52,114.69 – $81,530.99 annually. An annual stipend of $1,274.18 shall be paid to any faculty member who has an earned Doctorate.
2. Academic training and teaching experience will form the basis for salary computation as determined by placement on the regular salary schedule of the College. Degrees are recognized on the salary schedule only when they have been awarded by an accredited institution. For a salary estimate, visit www.palomar.edu/hr/salaryinfo and use the links for full-time faculty. Please note that a maximum of step 8 at the appropriate salary grade will be awarded to new faculty.
3. Fully-paid employee benefits for full time employees include medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and dependents; and life, disability, and long-term care insurance. Estimated value of these employer-paid benefits is approximately $18,900 annually. All full-time, tenure-track faculty are enrolled in STRS (State Teachers Retirement System).

For the full position announcement including the application procedure, click here.

Read "Three Cups of Tea"

No wonder this book is the current selection of the "One Book One San Diego" community reading campaign. This guy, Greg Mortenson, whom the book is about, is someone so special that no person on the globe should be ignorant of his work. He ranks right up there with Mother Teresa. Too bad Mr. Bush didn't know him before he sank us into the war. Even Republican Congresswoman Mary Bono has said, "Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He's my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea, he'll be your hero, too."

Read one of the most recent book reviews here. But better yet, my dear colleagues, if you haven't already done so, please get a copy of Three Cups of Tea because you have to read it. I mean it.

By the way, Greg Mortenson will appear on a book tour at SDSU later this year.

2008 Palomar College ESL Resident Scholarship Recipients

Congratulations to these five very deserving students who are the recipients of 2008 Palomar College ESL Resident Scholarships.

Saturnino Alonso Reyes with his teacher Marianne Uribe

Zoila Maria Amador

Abigail Avila

Omar Bello with his teacher Joanna Murphy

Pablo Lorenzo

Like all other scholarship honorees, these five ESL students received their award certificates at the annual Honors Night event on May 23. The following video clip is courtesy of Zoila Maria Amador's teacher Katrina Tamura.

Episode 38 of our "Voices of ESL" podcast is devoted to the speeches by these five students. You can listen to the episode by clicking here.

TESOL 2008

TESOL Notes and Handouts: Information Gathered from TESOL 2008
Heather Weldele: hweldele@palomar.edu
(These notes are much easier to read in word and include a scanned handout on "using the novel as a textbook." I can send this word document via email to anyone interested.)

Plenary Speeches
The best, in my opinion, were the plenary speeches. In a nut shell, Penny Ur spoke about her research on correcting in both speaking and writing. In spite of some research which suggests corrections interfere with fluency, may hurt students, and are not actually helpful to the students learning, overwhelming, students stated that they want to be corrected and they felt that corrections were helpful. Still, Ur agrees that correcting presents some problems. For one, she notes that we need to be corrected about eight times before we can conquer our mistakes. However, gradual improvement through correction is better than no corrections at all. She also addressed the evidence of the best time to correct being in “real time,” but the problem of interrupting fluency. Here, she says, a good teacher must decide when it is appropriate and useful to interrupt.
A few things I found particularly interesting…. Students prefer (in written correction) to be told exactly how to fix their errors rather than being told what the mistake is and correcting it themselves. (ie: rather than telling them to add a transition, write it in for them). Ur insists that this is not because the students are lazy but because they find it most helpful.
Lastly, some numbers:
Type / Correction
1. Recast (say again correctly)
55% = Frequency of Use
18% = Uptake
2. Elicitation
14% = Frequency of Use
46% = Uptake
3. Clarification of Request (“I didn’t understand.”)
11% = Frequency of Use
28% = Uptake




Aida Walkee: “Quality Teaching for ESL”
Walkee discussed how we define accomplished practice and what it should entail. Her main point was that teachers must offer both high challenge and high support.
Principles and notes:
Academic Rigor: Substantial ideas, deep disciplinary knowledge / develop central ideas and establish complex relationships between ideas / use higher order of thinking skills.
High Expectations: scaffolds are provided / **believe all members can achieve / provide clear criteria for higher expectations.
Quality Interactions: Talk about subject matter of discipline encourages reasoning, application of ideas, argumentation, forming generalization, and asking questions.
Language Focus: explicit discussion of how language works / characteristics of language.
**Students should be given the principles.

Articles: Discussion group
Activities for teaching articles:
Cut out newspaper articles and blacken the articles in the story
Cut out newspaper headlines (these are usually missing articles)
We discussed the difficulties of each of these activities. It seems to make the most sense to blacken the articles in a short story or fable similar to the one below.

A Fable for Articles:
(Use to teach “second mention.”)

A hungry wolf was eating its dinner when a piece of bone got stuck in its throat. It was quite painful, so the wolf went to his friends for help. The wolf said, “I will give anything to anyone who helps me.” No one could help the wolf. So the wolf ran to the shore of a pond and found a crane fishing for frogs. The wolf begged the crane to help, and at last the crane agreed to try. The wolf opened its mouth wide, and the crane put its long beak and neck into the wolf’s mouth. The crane found the piece of bone and carefully removed it from the wolf’s throat. “Now what is my reward?” asked the crane. The wolf grinned and said, “You put your head inside a wolf’s mouth and you still have your head. That is your reward.”

Websites and Videos (from Judie Haynes’ presentation on “DSL”).
Judie Haynes, creator of everythingESL.net presented on using technology in the classroom. Although she was presenting on how to use technology in an elementary classroom, much can be used at the college level as well. Below are some websites that she mentioned that might be useful:
Hotchalk: www.hotchalk.com
This site has NBC news for students, as well as several lesson plans.
United Streaming: www.unitedstreaming.com
This is a website you have to pay for, but a free 30-day trial is available. (Discovery Channel online educational videos and teaching resources).
Inspiration: www.inspiration.com
For writing: Make outlines, peer review activities, clusters, etc that students fill out on the computer.

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 4

"Formative Assessment: A Powerful Tool for English Learner Instructors" was the title of the talk given by Comfort Ateh, a high school science teacher with Sacramento Unified School District and a doctoral student at UC Davis. It was that title that first attracted by attention as I wanted to see what's new in assessing students formatively. Three techniques Comfort demonstrated were:

1. Associated group analysis (AGA). An example of this technique is to give a key word and ask the students to write the words/phrases that come to mind when they think of the word. AGA seeks no overt right or wrong answers and can be done in 30 seconds. I think this is great for a targeted warm-up or pre-lesson activity.
2. Selected response, or "select and explain." An example of this technique is to give a list of organisms and ask the students to put an X to each organism that is an animal. They are then asked to describe the rule or reasoning that guided them to select the animals and to explain it. This activity is particularly suited for eliciting only one correct answer.
3. Interview protocol, which is basically heuristic questioning between a teacher and a student. During the exchanges, the attentive teacher gives students cues, but not the right answer directly. An application for this technique would be for teaching parts of speech.

In addition, Comfort reminded us of many formative classroom tips to help ESL students build self-confidence and overcome the many academic challenges they face.

• let the students explain back
• let them re-do a test for half of the original points
• refrain from making a student paper turn bloody red, but target select areas to focus on
• always write a positive comment to start with, e.g. "I like your ..."
• remember good feedback does not always come with marking student assignments with a number or a percentage
• use a "check plus, check, and check minus" system to emphasize and encourage improvement, especially for low-achieving students; explain the connection between the "checks" system and the points the students receive only at the end of the semester
• remember 40% of the students can be passed with a "C" if they have improved from "0" with efforts

It's freshening to hear such a caring approach to facilitating student learning. It's in stark contrast to the seemingly ruthless over-dependence on summative tests that is the hallmark of NCLB, for example. Listening to Comfort talk, I thought of a Chinese teacher I had heard about who would go around and put a check mark next to a correct answer as her students took a test.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped by Ma Jong Asian Diner on L Street and ordered a shrimp/vegetable take-out dish. I was happily surprised to see that they offered brown rice in addition to the ubiquitous white rice. Needless to say, I enjoyed the yummy dinner in my hotel room and then packed up to get ready to check out early in the morning.

Sunday workshops have been my favorite benefits of CATESOL state conferences. For one thing, you get three hours' worth of a focused PD without having to pay extra, like for the pre-conference workshops. For another, the presenters are usually well-chosen. For this year, I chose "Corpus Linguistics and the World of Teaching" given by Randi Reppen of Northern Arizona University. Even though I had used collocation concordance programs online recently, corpus linguistics was not taught when I was in grad school. I would like to see more of how corpus linguistics gets applied in classroom teaching. Some highlights of Randi's talk:

Corpus basics:

• a corpus refers to a collection of naturally occurring texts stored electronically
• the collection is principled, not of the "anything goes" kind
• corpus users interact with the computer
• collocates are words that occur together, i.e. word friends

Popular programs for searching texts (in .txt files or plain text files only):

• MonoConc, $80+; the best according to Randi
• Wordsmith, $100+; an older version crashed Randi's computer
• AntConc, free,; though not the most user-friendly, it comes with a useful "readme" file and gives you lexical bundles; it was created by Laurence Anthony, who teaches in Japan and is himself very friendly

Classroom applications:

• produce a frequency list on three pages of a reading for a pre-reading check; use green and yellow highlighting for "know" and "may know" respectively; if the students don't know every third word, they cannot be expected to successfully comprehend the reading.
• generate a list of words in frequency order and another one in alphabetical order, then use the lists to teach
• collocation, e.g. ability to, abandoned by, etc.
• function words vs. non-function words
• select parts of speech
• sentence formation/creation
• word families
• use chunks of language (i.e. lexical bundles) as productive tools; generate distribution of 4-word-lexical bundles, for example, by type (noun or prepositional phrase, verb phrase, etc.) and context (classroom lectures, textbooks, etc.) and teach the frequent occurrences. For example, for the noun or prepositional type, the following 4-word-lexical bundles occur more than 40 times per million words in textbooks, thus constituting the academic language to be learned and taught:
• as a result of
• in the form of
• in the United States
• on the basis of
• the nature of the
• the size of the.

On the other hand, in classroom teaching, the following fillers occur frequently, which signal some ideal time for the note-taking students during the lecture:

• let us talk about
• take a look at
• we're going to have
• what I want to
• you don't want to
• you know I mean
• you know if you
• you look at the.
• teach natural opening/closing sequences and use of fillers based on a corpus. For example, in hurried campus cafeteria transactions, the server frequently does not say, "How may I help you?" Instead, he goes "Hi." And at the end, no one seems to be using "You're welcome" in response to a "Thank you," unlike in most ESL textbooks. Also, the "uh" and "um" fillers used by a customer frequently happen before some specifics or decisions. Thus, we should have our ESL students role play these utterances. Randi was quick in pointing out that Touchstone, a 4-level textbook series by Cambridge now teaches fillers among other language uses in natural contexts.
• take lines from a concordance of a word that represent corpus-based research findings, which are often the reverse of a textbook rule, and have students notice the grammar or usage first from the lines. An example given by Randi concerned the word "any" and came from this fine web article: http://iteslj.org/Articles/Krieger-Corpus.html. Another example concerned the verb "commit." It turned out that the "flavor" of the right collocates of the verb was different from what most of us would associate it with in the first place. It was also very interesting to see the different listings of the meanings of "commit" between a corpus-based dictionary such as a learner's dictionary by Longman or Cambridge and a non-corpus-based dictionary.
• provide a list of concordance instead of commenting with "Awkward" or writing "Word Choice" on a student paper.
• provide concordances to show the nuances between synonyms such as "little" (for animates) and "small" (for things on average).
• scan a textbook to build a corpus so that sentences with a group of related words can be easily accessed to design a worksheet. An example came from Paulo Quaglio, who had just presented at TESOL 08 in March. His worksheet showed six sentences with suasive verbs taken from his Economics Corpus. The task was for his students to fill in the blanks with the verbs in the suasive verb banks that he provided and then find linguistic features typical of persuasive writing in each of the sentences.

A list of useful resources and websites:

• MICASE - Michigan corpus of academic spoken English. This is a very rich free site with sound files of academic spoken language. There is also a free shareware program for transcription that can be downloaded.
http://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/teaching.htm: More than 10 lessons that are very nicely done and updated based on MICASE; ideal for advanced academic English classes
• VIEW.byu.edu - where VIEW means "variation in English words." This is a portal to many corpora that interface with an online search function. There is a link to a corpus of Time magazine that could be used in academic reading and writing classes. The registers here are very similar to the four in Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English.
• Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999). This tome is full of corpus-based research findings in four registers: newspapers (at about 8th grade level), conversation, fiction, and academic prose. According to this book, the twelve most frequent lexical verbs in spoken English including academic lectures are:
• say
• get
• go
• know
• think
• see
• make
• come
• take
• want
• give
• mean
Thus, we should start teaching these verbs to beginning students, even if these are irregular verbs.
• T2K SWAL - TOEFL 2000 Spoken and Written Language Monograph 25 as a .pdf file. This research report has a nice appendix with a wealth of useful information.
• Compleat Lexical Tutor. This site has a tool for students to paste in texts and see the types of words they are using. The goal is for them to use as many academic words as possible. A nice review of an earlier version of Compleat Lexical Tutor is here: http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESl-EJ/ej31/m2.html.

If two and a half days of attending the state conference had inspired me to synthesize a trend, then I would say that more and more of our colleagues seem to want to be in touch with a natural approach to teaching, an approach that is grounded in the realities of language learning, away from the dictates of an educationally uninformed government and a profit-driven corporate America. I sensed a collective expectation for a new federal administration that would be kinder and gentler to education. I thought it a great segue to transition from this year's conference theme of "Growing Democracy" to next year's "Whole Learner, Whole Teacher."

Feeling satisfied, I pulled my luggage through the front lobby of the Hyatt Hotel, stepped onto the high-noon day out front, and headed for the bus stop nearby to catch the $1.50 ride to the airport. What a good deal! Fifteen minutes later, I found myself at a table in the airport food court, enjoying some soup and grading student paragraphs that I hadn't been able to finish from previous nights. When both jobs were done, I strolled over into a gift shop and bought Shelley, my daughter, a nice black t-shirt with a sequined "Sacramento" across the chest. I knew that was the style she loved. I also knew that my students would benefit from the many ideas that I would bring home and try out in class. Suddenly, I wanted to go home very much. Luckily, my late-afternoon flight was only a short time away from boarding.

Angela came up to me in the gate area, to my happy surprise. A whole bunch of colleagues from San Diego CCD were on the same flight home. After she pre-boarded, Angela saved a seat for me in the pretty packed plane. With Angela as my seat mate, the 90-minute journey looked even shorter. We chatted about the just ended conference. We chatted about our families. We even chatted about our annual summer party. It was a pleasant trip, made even more so by a great, invigorating conference.

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 3

After picking up a sandwich and ice tea at the Wolfgang Puck's Express food counter at the Convention Center, I hurried upstairs to join in the Community College Level Rap. The outgoing Community College Level Chair, Laura Walsh of City College of San Francisco, did a good job in moving the discussions along. The issues that concerned most attendees were:

1. The degree-applicable ESL courses. Mark Lieu, the statewide Academic Senate President and an ESL professor from Ohlone College, was on hand to explain the latest Title V language change that delinked ESL composition courses from English composition courses, thus making it possible for more ESL courses to be qualified as degree-applicable. I was glad that due to foresight and luck, the academic courses in our dept. have long enjoyed not only AA-degree applicability but also some CSU and UC transferability. With the new ruling, we can walk with our heads held high, so to speak, not worrying if the status of our academic courses would be questioned any more.
   
2. The ESL data newly included in the statewide ARCC (Accountability Reporting for Community Colleges). As was the case for many other ESL departments, our ESL improvement rate in the report looked very bad. Mark Lieu explained that we ought to look at how our raw data, including the course coding, got reported to the state because that was what the state depended on for the report.
   
3. The financial picture. CATESOL's legislative advocate Dr. Jeff Frost, who had been making the rounds from level rap to level rap, predicted a very bleak outlook for the state budget in the next two years. Some kind of tax hike may have to happen to tide California's education over this crisis.
   
4. The labor division between adult ed and community colleges. Jeff Frost said that there was no clear-cut legal stipulations as to who offers noncredit classes for adult learners in the community. The division had been local, by inter-district agreements and past practices.

What's up next in the same room was the Community College Level Workshop titled "Successful ESL Programs and Students." I saw Katheryn sitting on the front row in the audience from the previous session, so I moved up there to be next to her. The first panelist was Laura Walsh again. She explained the standard measures of student success. The short-term ones were:

1. course completion (or success) rate: completed with a grade of A, B, C, D (used to be counted as success in the CSU system), CR
2. course retention rate: completed with a grade of A, B, C. D, F, CR, NCR (This means all the students who stayed to the end of the semester. I couldn't help but think of the value of assigning FW at Palomar because if we insisted on giving an F to students who disappeared, our retained percentage would look bad. In other words, an FW given to a student meant that the student did not stay until the end.)
3. term or year persistence: registered and enrolled at census in the following term or year
4. number of units successfully completed
5. mean gpa.

She provided an example from her college to illustrate the above short-term measures.

Long-term success measures, on the other hand, were:

1. number of units completed (with 30 and 60 units benchmarks, the former indicating half way for transfer and the latter being the standard for transfer)
2. preparation for transfer: 60 units with transfer-level math and English completed, as opposed to just random courses taken
3. transfer to a four-year institution
4. transfer to another two-year institution, i.e. lateral transfer, which should still be counted as success for the student
5. degree or certificate completion (A research finding cited by Laura said students with degree goals went much further than those with personal goals, but some in the audience still questioned why reaching personal goals were not counted as a success measure)
6. subsequent degree from four-year institution or subsequent employment.

The second panelist was graduate student Yueh-ching Chang of California Community College Collaborative (C4), UC Riverside. Her slide show was titled "Transferring Promising Practices (TPP) in Community College--English as a Second Language Programs." One of the several challenges in community college ESL that she talked about was how to identify and then serve ESL students, many of whom shunned an ESL label. Another challenge was how to increase learning gains, which had these two main barriers:

1. instructional time
2. instructional methods (There's no support for instructors to devise meaningful contexts for students to really increase learning gains.)

Among the promising practices in community college ESL:

1. high intensity programs (up to 25 hours a week, with exit requirements) with managed enrollment (open only the first few days of the term in order to force student commitment)
2. extending learning beyond the classroom (i.e. authentic learning)
3. curricular integration with content courses (This reminded me of the plenary speaker at last fall's San Diego Regional, Professor Frank Noji of Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii, whose ESL colleagues created their syllabi aligned with those of mainstream courses, aiming for a rooted relevance. I blogged about this on Oct. 22, 07.)
4. recruiting and retaining high quality ESL faculty (A good faculty resource center could contribute to such faculty retention.)

Laura commented how Yueh-ching's promising practices in her research findings actually jived with the best practices cited in the statewide Basic Skills Initiative documents.

The just-retired ESL Dept. chair of City College of San Francisco, Sharon Seymour, took the floor next. Her slide show was entitled "Noncredit ESL Student Transition to Credit at CCSF." Sharon and her CCSF colleagues had been very active in partnering with the Council for Advancement of Adult Literacy (CAAL) to be at the center of special study projects on adult ESL, resulting in such monumental documents as Torchlights in ESL and Pathways and Outcomes.

It was interesting to note the program design for noncredit students at CCSF, which includes:

• a general ESL program that meets 10 hours a week and offers 10 levels from literacy to low advanced
• a focus ESL program that meets 5 hours a week and focuses on discrete skill areas
• an accelerated ESL program that covers two levels in one term and serves as a program enhancement for selected students.

Having shared the findings of a longitudinal study (98 to 06) done at CCSF, Sharon concluded with several suggestions to increase noncredit to credit transition:

• provide matriculation services by giving everyone a placement test, for example
• structure programs by shortening the term, for example, to maximize student advance
• try fast-tack programs
• target students most likely to succeed (I would like to know how exactly they did this.)

The last panelist to speak was Prof. Mark Roberge of San Francisco State University, who is best known for his work on Gen 1.5 issues. Mark's talk focused on "Making the Jump to Junior-year Composition." Mark first listed the challenges in preparing transfer students for upper-division English requirements:

1. Gate-keeping mechanisms: CSU's GWAR (graduation writing assessment requirement), for example
2. Articulation of curricula
3. Differences in standards and expectations
4. No real upper-division support at CSUs.

Mark then suggested some solutions for community college teachers:

1. Go beyond one-genre writing. Don't just require four "pro-con" essays. We need descriptive, summary writing, etc. One technique is to start with a topic and then decide what rhetorical pattern(s) to use in the essay. Although GWAR typically calls for writing of the "agree/disagree" type, in students' majors, they will do lots of tech-response kind of writing, such as synthesizing, summarizing, etc.
2. Analyze the task (i.e. decode writing assignments and essay prompts) and hidden expectations.
3. Prepare students to self-scaffold assignments. The writing process, time line, etc. for a term paper should be a portable skill set.
4. Prepare student for grammatical issues. It's important to figure out standards/expectations for both general population and ESL students. Ten errors per paper may be OK for an ESL instructor who views them as writing with an accent, but a content teacher may impose a 2-error-per-paper limitation.

Exiting the meeting room with Katheryn, she asked if I had attended a CATESOL-board-sponsored morning session on the community college Basic Skills Initiative and the ESL learner. Upon learning that I had not, she gave me a BSI newsletter and pointed out the upcoming BSI regional meetings in June and the statewide training conference in August.

After I thanked Katheryn and we said good-bye to each other, I headed back to Sheraton for the last one on my list of sessions to attend for the day.

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 2

Next, I headed to a panel presentation with this featured topic: Can We Develop Statewide ESL Placement Tests for California Community Colleges? This topic interested me tremendously as I had been aware of an effort to do so as a result of frustrations felt by colleagues up and down the state over their inability to place students consistently across districts, to afford dependable commercial testing instruments, to count on commercial support, or to find that perfect test. Indeed, dozens of participants at the session facilitated by Kitty Moriwaki of City College of San Francisco, Mark Sanmuels of Southwestern College, and Angelia Jovanovic of Sacramento City College aired the same sentiments.

I learned that Kitty and Mark are co-chairs and Angelia is a member of the Test-Development Feasibility Task Force for the California Community College Assessment Association (CCCAA). (By the way, CCCAA has a website at CCCAA.net, where one can sign up to join its listserv.) The Task Force continues to evaluate the feasibility of the development of quality, minimal-cost placement assessment instruments written by CCC-faculty and/or purchased from independent sources and managed by the California Community Colleges. These tests are intended to be available, not mandatory, for use by any CCC in its placement processes in 3 to 4 years. The panelists therefore were very interested in seeking the input from everyone and distributed a survey of ESL subject matter experts for the audience to take home.

The panelists showed the following likely stages of the test development:

1. Stage 1: fixed-form tests, multi-level, quasi-adaptive, available in computerized and paper-pencil formats
2. Stage 2: local, "customized" placement tests based on individual ESL program test specifications, quasi-adaptive, available in computerized and paper-pencil formats
3. Stage 3: computer-adaptive placement test.

A show of hands gave an overwhelming approval to the efforts.

It was also very interesting to hear what other colleges are doing to run their placement tests. One of the questions that folks are grappling with is whether to give a choice between computerized tests and paper-pencil tests. The latter seems necessary for testing at remote sites where there is no easy computer access. Mt. San Antonio College, which serves 5,000 noncredit students alone, is the only college that has developed its own computer adaptive ESL placement tests approved by the Chancellor's Office. At the opposite end, Ventura College has adopted the method of self-placement where an ESL instructor and a Matriculation Specialist provide example work from various classes and let the new students take enough time to examine the samples, peg their current skills, and place themselves. The Ventura colleague assured everyone that their self-placement has worked wonders. I remember some time ago, there was going to be delegation from Ventura College visiting Palomar to specifically study how our COMPASS tests worked, but they called off the visit at the last minute. Hmmm...

In terms of paying faculty to work at the test, at some colleges, full-time faculty volunteer to work on their test and registration days and are paid an honorarium or at the lab rate. At Irvine Valley College, eligible adjunct faculty get paid one hour for 3 hours of grading writing samples and are paid with noncredit matriculation funds.

Katheryn, our just-retired former dean, was at this session, too. I was not surprised, knowing how deeply she cared about the best ways to serve ESL students. The participants were no less enthusiastic, either. So many questions and so much sharing went down the room that the session went way over time till about 5:30. It was time for me to call it a day and make sure I had a room at my hotel.

My Saturday conference attendance started in Sheraton ballrooms where the Saturday Plenary took place. Our very own Mary Negrete was among the five Rick Sullivan Awards recipients. She really deserved it, especially in light of her stunning organizational skills as a site co-chair for last year's statewide conference in San Diego. The other, equally good site co-chair from last year Bobbie Felix spotted me in the cavernous hall and ran over to keep me company. I was so grateful that I finally had a friend to make my occasional comments to while listening to the speeches. After a couple of other awards including a graduate student research award given by the University of Michigan Press to a Korean student, the plenary speaker was introduced as a prolific writer on all things SLA, that is, second language acquisition.

Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Affiliate Professor of Education at UC Berkeley. In her speech, she used data collected by her doctoral student, a City College of San Francisco ESL teacher, to try to prove that the ability to function in a multilingual environment requires more than just communicative competence in English. The dialogues between a Yucateco Maya immigrant and his Vietnamese supplies provider and between the Mayan and a Chinese grocer were a mix of bits of multiple languages and power play, in my opinion. They were so amusing at times that I couldn't help but whisper to Bobbie that somebody ought to make a situational comedy movie out of them. Prof. Kramsch analyzed the transcripts as the audience roared with laughter from time to time.

She had a serious notion to propose, however. It is called "symbolic competence" that includes:

• awareness of subjectivity
• awareness of historicity
• performativity
• reframing.

True to her intellect, Prof. Kramsch asked us to approach language acquisition and language socialization from ecological perspectives, or a complexity theory with these tenets:

1. relativity of self and other
2. time scales
3. emergentism
4. unfinalizability
5. fractal.

Significance for the teaching of ESL? "Becoming teachers of meaning," she called on us, and she went on to define the meaning thus:

• meaning is relational
• meaning is mediated
• meaning is multi-scalar
• meaning is emergent
• meaning is historically contingent
• meaning is reflexive.

After the talk, I went over to the other side of the hall to say hi to my old friend Ken from my Long Beach days. He, his wife, and I chatted a bit about the plenary speech. We still wondered how a classroom teacher was supposed to teach symbolic competence. Wasn't what got described in that doctoral ethnographic study stuff that naturally occurred? However, even though what we just heard was not as practical as Ken's new textbook that teaches academic language patterns, I did appreciate the reminder from Prof. Kramsch to view our adult learners as intelligent whole persons and their language learning and language use as a multi-faceted, holistic complexity.

Time now was 10:30. Hungry for something practical and dear to my heart, I went across the street, through the Convention Center, and over to the Hyatt Hotel for a demonstration titled "Connecting Technology to the Curriculum." Geared toward adult ed teachers, the talk was nonetheless applicable to other teachers who used computers in the classroom. Two famed early adopters of CALL in Southern California, if not nationwide, Barry Bakin of LA Unified School District and Susan Gaer of Santa Ana College, shared their ideas. But Barry was the one presenting. He started out by sharing these somewhat overlapping tech-using principles and random examples that were supplied by Susan:

• Keep focused objectives (e.g. let students use Quia to make language games; use Audacity to record a self-introduction for your students but with verbs blanked out)
• Make activities real (e.g. a lesson on buying medicine using drugstore.com/)
• Use student experience (e.g. let students create PowerPoint presentations about their countries)
• Develop math and language skills (e.g. use Google Maps and Google Docs to come up with a price comparison, etc.)
• Use authentic information
• Engage students (e.g. Room Maker; SpellingCity.com)

Then, Barry showed how he pulled things (e.g. a family tree) out of a textbook to design a technology lesson as well as to justify the high cost of buying the book. Specifically, one can

• reinforce a vocabulary lesson found in the textbook using a technology lesson
• provide more practice in a competence such as reading and understanding graphs
• easily re-create a writing strategy suggest by a book exercise, using PowerPoint or Publisher
• develop activities using other technologies such as the OHP and Language Master card readers from exercises in the book in addition to a computer project
• supplement a reading text with an online quiz or mp3 files of the story being read aloud
• spice up a boring handout-based lesson by sending students to an authentic website
• use video clips for supplementing grammar or to predict what will happen next.

Select examples included:

• Students use PowerPoint slide or a Word document with clip art to make grammatical sentences in order to demonstrate their just-in-time learning.
• Students use Paint to draw or use clip art to demonstrate their understanding of comparatives, etc.
• Students read about superlatives in an authentic news report and then answer questions about what they have read via email or in a Word document sent to them as an attachment. The teacher replies to student emails just to acknowledge receipt but prints out a hard copy to mark.
• Students use Excel to make charts for a small research project and then give a PowerPoint presentation to an invited audience of students from an upper level class and an administrator.
• Students use PowerPoint or Publisher to cluster their ideas as a pre-writing activity.
• The teacher and/or groups of student record messages, directions, and instructions for filling out forms, etc. for group work.
• Students come to the front to use OHP to demonstrate something with manipulatives.
• Students use a public transit website to fill out online forms and then turn the information into a paragraph.
• After students do a reading from Everyday Heroes, for example, the teacher uses thestudyplace.org to create an online quiz and email the quiz link to the students.

Other resources I learned during this session:

• There is a very clean, free media player called VLC Media Player.
• Many useful handout are located under the heading of "Professional Development" at this website: http://esl.adultinstruction.org/.
• Susan Gaer's 44-page conference presentation handout is here at http://www.susangaer.com/catesol2008/.
• Barry's experiments with integrating technology are blogged here at http://www.tech4esl.blogspot.com/.

In a Q & A exchange, Barry said that schools exist to enable students to learn, not to make tech guys happy, for example. He also reminded the audience to ensure timely training of their techs for Vista, etc. I was very impressed by Barry's incisive wisdom, practical advice, and vast experience of connecting technology to curriculum. I came away from the session being reminded once again that teaching technology for the sake of technology is not sustainable. We've got to try harder to use technology as an integrated means in content teaching.

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 1

I found I wasn’t really going to miss my 10 AM presentation after being reassured by the Super Shuttle lady behind the counter at the Sacramento Airport. I had missed my first flight out of San Diego at 6:30 on the morning of Friday, April 11, due to super long lines for the security check-in. Folks told me to blame American’s canceled flights that added to Southwest’s passenger load. My rebooked flight from San Diego had just landed shortly before 9. The Super Shuttle took about fifteen minutes to deliver me to the Convention Center in downtown Sacramento. With my luggage in tow and my presentation handouts in my backpack, I quickly went through the presenters’ check-in. I managed to be the first one to arrive at Big Sur A, my presentation room, with 20 minutes to calm my nerves.

My presentation, entitled "Ten Ways to Grow Democracy in the ESL Classroom,” went well. About 25 colleagues were in attendance. Angela Webster came to render her support. I was just glad that she was there to explain her mentor program, which I included as one of the examples for a concrete strategy. With the new 90-minute format, the session had plenty of time for interaction with and among the audience members. I played the very first episode of my “Voices of ESL” podcast series at the conclusion of my session amid much applause.

Then, I went two blocks north to look for my economical hotel, Quality Inn, only to find out that no rooms were ready, but the receptionist was kind enough to take in my bags for storage. On my way back to the Convention Center, I struck up a conversation with a fellow conference attendee and stopped at a corner café to grab a bite to go.

After hurrying into the hall where the Friday President’s Lunch Plenary had started, I picked a back seat to enjoy my sandwich and take in what was happening. The Secondary Level Essay Award was on, followed by the Adult Level Writing Contest Award. Both student winners read their own essay on what democracy meant, citing their own first-hand experiences as immigrants. Then, the outgoing CATESOL President Dan Fichtner presented the Sadae Iwataki Service Award to Margaret Teske of Mt. SAC for her services to the organization, especially in the area of overseeing CATESOL conferences. I know Margaret as I have seen her at all kinds of conferences. She and her ESL colleagues at Mt. SAC are running a very dynamic ESL Dept. there. I was very happy for her, although she seemed to be surprised by the award.

Then, Sac State Professor Emeritus Jose Montoya took the floor to deliver his plenary speech entitled “Using Art to Nurture Creativity in the Classroom.” Dubbed “one of the most influential Chicano bilingual poets in the U.S.,” Mr. Montoya was both creative and funny. For example, he quipped that the abbreviation of his Rebel Chicano Art Front, an artists’ collective, was mistaken for Royal Canadian Air Force. But his message was serious and very much in keeping with what we know as paying attention to all the seven intelligences in the classroom, in my opinion, although he emphasized the use of visual art, poetry, and song lyrics.

I next headed to the workshop called “Eliciting Analytical Responses in Timed Writing Exams” given by Robby Ching, Darlene Jantz, and Rebecca Mitchell of the Learning Skills Center of Sac State. Their talk is aptly subtitled “Developing ‘WRITE’ Students,” with the acronym representing their goals for the students: Wrestle with the issues, Read carefully, Interact with the authors, Think critically, and Express opinions.

As we all know, Generation 1.5 and other ESL students in colleges have found it hard to transition from expressive writing, where anything goes, to academic reading and writing, where personal experience alone is insufficient. At Sac State, as at many other colleges, students must demonstrate their ability to write an analytical response. Both the midterm and final exams are group-graded on a very detailed 6-point rubric, with teachers not grading their own students. If students pass the timed final writing exam, receiving at least 4 on the six-point rubric, they pass the course. If not, they can use their writing portfolio to try to pass the course.

The presenters from Sac State defined analytical responses with such characteristics:

• Show critical thinking; take an issue apart perhaps by attempting to point out the root cause; read between the lines
  
• A written presentation of a clear position on a controversial issue with thorough and logical explanation and support; an accurate understanding of explanations and arguments in a text; appropriate assessment of the author’s evidence.

The presenters found the traditional type of controversy prompts problematic because even with allowing the students to bring the reading to the final, they still misread and misquoted the reading. In other words, they still couldn’t analyze the ideas of others or integrate these ideas into their own writing. The presenters showed three student samples to prove the students’ lack of understanding of and interaction with the assigned reading.

The presenters and their colleagues at Sac State decided to try a new type of prompt in order to develop their students’ interest in the topic and the readings, to discourage over-reliance on quoted materials, and to create an opportunity for counter-argument. Luckily, the material development was easy for the Sac State colleagues because they don’t use textbooks. The new prompt included a one-side, extreme letter to the editor, offering an opportunity for the students to interact with the author more. The students were then asked to explain the letter writer’s position in their own words and discuss the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with at least two of his arguments. The students needed to support their position by providing reasons and examples from their own experience, observations, or reading. They were also to refer to at least one of the readings given to them to prepare for the exam.

Not only was the prompt style changed, but the way to prepare the students was transformed also. The teacher designed a note-taking chart to replace the article(s) that used to be allowed in the exam room. The chart was collected along with the essay at the end of the exam. It may be grounds for failing if there were no “quotes" on the chart.

To truly prepare the students, the presenters and their Sac State colleague focused on ways to

• pique the students’ interest in the topic/readings
  
• help the students better understand the information and arguments in the articles
  
• help students connect their own opinions and ideas with the opinions and ideas of others.

As a pre-reading activity, the presenters and their Sac State colleague now routinely present their students with only the titles of the four or five readings first and then ask them to determine the topic and issues, predict the authors’ position, write their initial reaction to the topic, and/or write questions that they have on the topic that they would like to see answered in the articles. The Sac State teachers also give examples and scenarios or even visual images to elicit critical response to the issue at hand.

Other concrete strategies that have seemed to work for the Sac State colleagues:

• Teach “before” and “after.” That is, before reading the articles, the students write down their opinion on the topic and state at least two reasons for this opinion. Then, after reading the article, they compare their feelings about the topic with their original opinion to see if their opinion stay the same, completely change, or somewhat change. They then write down two points from the readings that have convinced them to keep or change their original opinion.
  
• Teach annotating: The Sac State colleagues routinely teach the students to annotate an author’s thesis on the right margin of the handout and express their own opinion on the left. They even require the students to annotate the prompt on the day of the exam, which has a side benefit of preventing plagiarism.
  
• Give vocabulary practice worksheets. The Sac State teachers believe it’s very necessary for the students to have the ability to use the academic vocabulary correctly when writing about an issue. So they designed fill-in-the-blank worksheets with more than enough words and expressions provided so that the students can practice word choice and parts of speech as well.
  
• Teach classical rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos. Questions about logic, the author, and emotions help the students learn to recognize and analyze an author’s arguments.
  
• Teach how to recognize counter-arguments. A well-chosen paragraph with an author’s position, the position of people on the other side, and the author’s refutation of somebody else’s argument will do the trick.
  
• Provide an evidence identification and evaluation chart. Up to ten pieces of the author’s evidence can be highlighted and numbered in an article. For each piece, the students identify on the chart
  
  • which type of evidence it is (factual example, expert testimony, statistic, personal/ anecdotal experience, or commonly held assumption/belief)
    
  • what rhetorical appeal it serves (logos, ethos, or pathos)
    
  • where it is on a 1-10 reliability scale (1 is untrustworthy; 10 is absolute).
• Give a courtroom assignment. The teacher sets up a scenario. Half of the students are to build a case for the plaintiff, and the other half builds a case for the defendant. In addition to attorneys, each side is to have experts (e.g. psychologists, sociologies, nutritionists, doctors, advertising experts, and any other witnesses deemed necessary) who must research information that fits their roles. Those not taking specific “acting” roles are assigned to the jury, who gives a verdict based on the most compelling arguments at the close.
  
• Form a value line. This activity encourages the students to take a position on an issue and recognize varying degrees of opinions on that issue. The teacher poses a question to the class. After each student has had time to think of an answer, perhaps by putting it in writing, the teacher and a student stand at the opposite ends of the room. Each states an extreme position on the issue at opposite ends of the spectrum. The students are asked to take their place along an imaginary line between the two extreme positions. Students talk to those they are standing near to make sure they are in the correct position and can move if they aren’t. The teacher asks one person from each cluster group to state their position on the issue.
  
• Conduct a town hall meeting. The goal of this activity is to make sure that students understand the issue in the articles, see how they relate to each other, and can think critically about an issue. Students assume the roles of people in the assigned articles to present solutions to a particular problem and to offer dissenting opinions on the various solutions. The rest of the students comprise the audience. The teacher functions as the moderator, keeping time and making sure all positions and questions are heard. Role players have 10 minutes to prepare and must cite evidence from the readings and include personal examples if they apply. Audience members must take notes as they listen and ask at least one question to any of the panelists. At the end, the students debrief by discussing points that were possibly omitted or under-developed. They can then free-write about positions they agreed or disagreed with and why or solutions not mentioned in the articles or discussion.
  
• Run a speed debate. This activity encourages student debate and discussion from every student and allows the teacher to better focus on the discussion. Students sit in two rows, facing each other in pairs. The teacher asks a question for the students to discuss with the person opposite him or her for 2 to 3 minutes. Then every student shifts one desk to the left (or right). The teacher can pose the same question or a new one, and the students continue their debate or discussion with their new partner.
  

At the conclusion of this very informative session, I felt like teaching ESL 103 again. I was sure that the ideas I heard would certainly elicit that critical voice from our ESL students and train them to be the "WRITE" ones.

ESL, A Window of Opportunity -- By Claudia E. Covarrubias

“Go ahead, take the chance!” That is what I said to myself in the winter of 2002 when I hesitantly stepped into the office of then Fallbrook coordinator Nimoli Madan. As I walked into her office, I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew was that I wanted to learn English and go to College but I had no pattern to follow and no way to start my education without somebody guiding me. Like many people in my situation, I felt intimidated because not knowing enough English is very demoralizing. I took a chance and walked into the small dingy off-campus ESL office located in a high school. I walked in, and to my surprise I found a well-spoken and gentle teacher who showed caring and concern. Once I started taking classes I realized that I was amongst a group of teachers who took the effort to encourage me and make me feel comfortable and at ease. This was my first step in the academic world.

I took two semesters of “free” noncredit English-as-a-second-language classes that prepared me and gave me enough confidence to know that I could spend more time learning new skills to prepare for a better career. I gained knowledge and felt like I could take the new world I was living in with poise. After successfully completing my English-as-a-second-language courses, I moved on to take yet another challenge, computers. This time I took advantage of another “free” program, ROP. I learned to use a computer. I took a couple semesters of computer programming given at the same school in Fallbrook where I learned English. Meanwhile I was in the process of gaining my legal status to a permanent residency and felt real happy to know that in the very near future I would be in college. That is when I knew my life was going to take a big turn; a turn for the better.

Like many emigrants that come to the USA to pursue a better life, I felt lucky to be able to better my life with the help of all the wonderful and dedicated people at Palomar College. While attending Palomar College, I became the president of the International Club, where we organized several activities to help foreign students interact with other students and make their college experience a good one. I was also able to work at the ESL computer lab in Escondido as a lab technician/assistant. There, I had a great experience helping people that were in the same situation I was sometime before, learning English and learning to use a computer. Shortly after, I was hired by a civil engineer’s office as an administrative assistant; all of these thanks to the skills learned from the ROP computer classes and of course, ESL classes. These days, I work as a high school bus driver, and just a few weeks ago I was offered the chance to become a trainer, which means a better position and higher salary. Though the job I am doing right now is fun and flexible, I have not changed my mind about pursuing what I really love, more education, and finally a profession that will fulfill my life. Many good things have come out of attending College; besides learning more English, I have also made good friends at a level that I only dreamt of. These are people like my professors, classmates, and tutors who have become part of my circle of friends.

I take this opportunity to thank all of those who were, and are, a part of my Palomar College experience. Thanks to all the coordinators of programs such EOP&S (Ann Stadler), BOGW, and ESL for helping me achieve my goal of earning an AA Degree in Liberal Arts. Among those who I found inspirational and dedicated to students are the following Professors, Nimoli Mandan, Shayla Sivert, Charles Ingham, and Dr. Andrea Bell.

Please keep free programs alive so people like me can dare to dream. With the right help at the right time and with the right support, dreams can come true. I am living proof of this, and I thank all those who helped me achieve what I have today from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

Jorge Villalobos’ Success Story -- in his own words

I started in the noncredit ESL program in beginning level 3 in summer 2000. At first, I did not realize I was in an English class with an American instructor until Sharon, my first English teacher, walked into the classroom greeting everyone in English. In fact, she started saying some phrases I did not understand at all. I remember I only understood “English” and “welcome.” I really wanted to run away and give up my interest in learning English. Nonetheless, the need of learning the language was stronger than my desire to run away. Hence, I stayed in class, bought my first English books, and started my journey in learning English. During my first semester, I learned to write complete yet simple sentences using pronouns and active verbs. I also had the opportunity to go to the computer lab and use Microsoft Word to type in a five-sentence paragraph stating a few aspects about my background. Then I realized that I was able to write in English! I felt very proud of myself. At the end of that semester, I could write and read a paragraph in English. Sharon told me with her very sweet smile I was promoted to go to level 4. I felt very accomplished and proud of myself. My desire to quit school was completely ripped out of my mind.

During the fall 2000, I took the intermediate level 4 class with Jackie Hodges. I began to learn more complex grammar sentences. I had to come up with a longer paragraph using more sentences. I was introduced to transitional phrases and irregular verbs. As a result, I realized there was a huge world of English grammar waiting to challenge me. When I moved to level 5, I began to learn the structure of a five-paragraph essay and more emphasis on pronunciation. Debbie, my instructor encouraged me to work on my pronunciation. While taking the level 5 class, I had the opportunity to attend an open house of the Vocational ESL program [VESL]. There I realized I could start learning about other subjects such as graphic design while learning English. At that point, I decided to pursue a career. Consequently, I opted to go to the VESL program.

During the three semesters I spent in the VESL program, I learned not just English and its grammar but also computer skills such as saving documents and sending e-mail attachments. I even learned how to scan pictures and what a pixel was. I also studied about the graphic communication field and the opportunities such a field offers to those earning a certificate. Thus, I was so enthusiastic about the idea of entering into a new world, the world of graphic design. In deed, Marutte Hecht, my VESL instructor, encouraged me to talk to a counselor who helped me create an educational plan to obtain a certificate of completion in Digital Imaging.

In my last semester in the VESL program, I moved to the morning class which Marty Furch was teaching. Marty played a big role in my career goals. She taught me a great deal of English syntax as well as computer and employment skills. In deed, she offered me to work as a student worker in the ESL computer laboratory. I was so excited about the idea of working at the same school I was taking classes at. In addition, it was a big accomplishment for me to work assisting other students who, like me before, were being introduced to a computer for the first time. I really enjoyed helping fellow students struggling with the mouse and worried because they “accidentally” clicked a wrong button. I believe during the time I started working as a lab assistant, I became aware that I truly liked helping students. Thus, I thought of changing my career goal. In other words, I decided that I wanted to be an English teacher so that I could help others who were going through the same situations while learning a new language as I did.

After graduating from the VESL program, which was my first biggest accomplishment, I took level 6 with Jamila Attoui. Jamila’s role as my teacher was crucial. She, being from another country, was able to learn English very well to the point she could teach it perfectly. She motivated me to work harder until I reach my goal. “Don’t be concerned about your accent. Focus more on speaking correctly and with perfect grammar, so you can compete with a native!” Jamila told me after giving the “good” news about going to the academic program.

Shayla Sivert was my instructor in ESL 101. With her, I learned to deal with punctuation, run-on sentences, comma splices, among other headache-generating grammar rules. Shayla, in fact, motivated me to read more and appreciate literature in English. When taking ESL 102 with Lynne Henson, I had to come up with a five-page essay analyzing an article or a short story in addition to even more complicating grammar rules. There were some cases, when taking grammar quizzes or writing essays, where I had second thoughts about becoming an English teacher. Nonetheless, I remembered the first time when I wanted to run away and didn’t. If I did not quit that time, I was not going to quit at the point where I had achieved more than I had expected.

Finally, when I finished ESL 103, I was ready to go to English 100. That was my second biggest achievement. I had gone through the ESL program and learned so much in that program. I was able to find out what I wanted to be and which ways to take in order to achieve my goal. I am so thankful for not running away from the first of my classes. I am also thankful for all the encouragement and help I received from all my ESL teachers. They have been my biggest role models. I learned so much from them.

Now, I am close to achieving my third biggest goal which is receiving my bachelor’s degree in literature and writing. My next biggest goal is to obtain my master’s degree in literature and writing. I know I will be able to achieve such goals because I have the skills needed to succeed, all thanks to the ESL programs and their amazing instructors.