San Marcos P.M. Teachers Met

Last Saturday, 13 colleagues from both the 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. San Marcos General ESL Programs gathered for their once-a-semester meeting.

After a round of self-introduction, they quickly reviewed what is available at faculty eServices. They then got to see our new and improved dept. website, where two new features are expected to contribute to the site being more useful and dynamic. One is the new "Student Showcase" section that provides links to student work and projects. The other, the "Staff Only" area, serves to be a one-stop shop for faculty and staff, who will no longer need to remember multiple URLs in order to access this weblog, the dept. meeting minutes, the dept. chair's office hours, coordinators' pages, and individual faculty pages.

The participants discussed such issues and concerns as the college's disaster preparedness and the dept.'s proposed early warning system to intervene in the case of an unsuccessful student. Several good suggestions were made regarding the implementation of the early warning system.

The teachers also got to experience a couple new teaching tools. The clickers were not unlike those used by the audience in the "Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire" TV show. Used in a smart classroom setting, the clickers allow students to anonymously vote in their answers to a multiple-choice question, for example, that is shown on a projector screen. The college's AT dept. has two bags of 32 clickers for checkout.

"English on a Roll" dices, on the other hand, enable students and teachers to manipulate word order in a low-tech but fun way. Our dept. has five sets of these dices. Interested teachers can check them out from Yolanda in A-19.

Other teaching resources talked about included the college's "Blackboard" classroom management software that is now available for every single course offered by Palomar. The gradebook feature alone would be worth exploring and trying if nothing else gets used.

Upon reviewing the single most important principle for undergraduate education and hearing the findings from a couple studies, all present realized and agreed that it is extremely important to make a personal connection with our students. This kind of engagement leads to student retention, student success, and student fans. Ways to connect with students were offered--

• making sure to have a conversation with each student
• greeting and saying goodbye to each student
• having a sense of humor
• showing and teaching respect
• polling students for feedback often

Having heard such great advice from each other and learned the new resources, the participants felt the three hours were well spent and the meeting was a useful one.

Welcome to Spring 08 Semester

Greetings. As we approach the spring 08 semester, I would like to warmly welcome six new or returning adjunct faculty members: Maria Allan (Academic ESL), Jerald Pike (Academic ESL), Marutte Hecht (VESL), Zakia Farouq (Academic ESL), Janis Lenhert (Escondido PM), and Elizabeth Lohr (San Marcos PM). And a warm welcome back to everybody else.

I'm happy to report that all of our courses planned for this semester have made so far. This achievement is due to the joint efforts of our classified employees and faculty to advise, recruit, assess, and register the students throughout the winter break. I am both proud to be part of this caring team and grateful for everyone's contributions to this early success.

This semester, our monthly department meetings will continue to be on the first Friday of each month. Thus, we ill meet on 2/1, 3/ 7, 4/4, and 5/2. We typically meet in A-15 from 9:30 to 11:30. Although adjunct attendance is not required, the meetings are open to all.

If you wish to travel to a conference this spring, please submit your travel request form ASAP as travel funds are limited and will be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. CATESOL 2008 has the following two deadlines that you may want to watch closely.

• Feb. 7 for applying for the Rick Sullivan Travel Award.
• Feb. 28 for early-bird registration.

Prop 92 makes college affordable again by reducing student fees and stabilizing funding at the community colleges. Please do what you can to support the measure, such as voting yes for Prop 92 on Feb. 5 and sending an email to your state lawmakers to ask for their endorsement now.

Within our dept., program coordinators will continue to have all the latest information and policies to ensure a smooth operation of our programs. But if I can be of any help, please do not hesitate to email me, call me, or stop by my office in A-20D on the main campus.

I hope you all have a very smooth start to the new semester.

Useful Syllabus

In order to make my syllabus more important to the students, I use it in class. To begin with, I ask them to help me fill in some blanks. At the bottom of the syllabus, I include a list of important days and type a line next to each where the students can then fill in the proper dates. Then as the dates come up during the semester, I use them as springboards for discussions or writing topics or some internet research. You can include whatever interests you. I include holidays and lab days and even the full moon. Students quickly catch on and often volunteer their birthdays.

Once they understand what we're trying to do, I pass out calendars that I've picked up around town. Students work in small groups. Sometimes the groups have to help each other as not all the calendars have all the special days I've selected. Later, I pass out a blank calendar and ask the students to fill it out either in class or as a homework assignment. We refer back to it every time there's a holiday or a full moon or a lab day.

On lab days, I have the students get out the notes they've written on the syllabus as well as the calendars they've made by hand. They use the information to fill in a calendar in MS Word. Once the students begin working on their calendars, I show them how to insert graphics and a text box for their names. A really nice thing about this lesson is that you can reinforce their emerging skills by doing another calendar the following month.

Sometimes, I begin the lab by showing the students an on-line interactive calendar like the monthly activity calendar found at enchantedlearning.com. It has tons of information and great "mini" research projects to look at and read about. You can explore as much as you'd like, depending on the level of the class.

If you're in a smart classroom, you can demonstrate both how to make a calendar and how to explore the on-line calendar. I sometimes demonstrate these skills before our lab and return later and review what we've done (or tried to do) after our lab day.

By using the syllabus, we refer to it quite often. In this way, I can gently remind my students of their obligation to come to class, to be on time, and to do their homework.

Syllabus as a Teaching Tool

While my teaching colleagues are writing and rewriting their syllabi for the new semester, I think it may be a timely idea to discuss the important role a syllabus plays in teaching college culture to our students, many of whom do not really know what a syllabus is.

In addition to being a summary of the main points of a course of study, a syllabus should also be a binding document that lists behavior expectations. I have occasionally heard colleagues complaining about a certain conduct displayed by their students, yet if the class rule was not stated in the syllabus and explained from day one, it would be hard, though not impossible, to create and enforce a new rule midstream in the semester.

Struggles we may have include absenteeism, students not doing the work, or students exhibiting "high school' behavior in the classroom. Many experienced college teachers state various course policies on their syllabi. A few examples from a mainstream credit class follow.

Student Responsibilities: You are responsible for your own learning in this class. If you must miss a class, it is your responsibility to find out what you missed, to obtain the day's assignment, and to return to the next class session prepared and ready to work. I have included space below for the phone numbers/email addresses of several classmates so that you can contact one of them if you have to be absent. It is also your responsibility to add, drop, or withdraw from class before the scheduled deadlines (deadline to drop without a "W": 2/20; deadline to withdraw: 3/15). If your name appears on the final roster, you must be given an actual grade (not a "W").

No personal electronic equipment such as cell phones, CD players, iPods, or take recorders may be operated in class unless approved by me. Please turn off all such devices upon entering the classroom.

Late Work: Any work turned in one class meeting late will be marked down by one full letter grade. Work that is two or more class meetins late will not be accepted. All written work - essays and exams - must be completed in order to pass the course. If you neglect to turn in an essay or exam, you will be unable to pass the class.

Attendance: Regular attendance is crucial to your success in this class. You are allowed four unquestioned absences; I advise you to save them for emergencies. You may be dropped from the course if you are absent without a valid excuse for more than four classes - unless there are mitigating circumstances and you convince me of your motivation to stay in the course.

Lateness: Being late to class once or twice is understandable. However, if you are repeatedly more than 5 minutes late, you will be marked absent.

Class Participation: Everyone is expected to participate in class discussion. Students will receive full participation points when their attendance is excellent, when they are actively involved in the class discussions, and when their presence has a positive effect on the class as a whole. Failure to participate will adversely affect your grade, as will negative and/or disrespectful participation. I expect honest, critical discussion which is also respectful.

Now, stating all of these expectations on your syllabus does not guarantee that your students will read them completely or understand them. A good practice, as you may well know, is to spend the majority of the first class, if not the entire first class, to go over your syllabus. I know a couple of my ESL teacher colleagues who routinely make their syllabi into an interactive form, leaving blanks at various strategic points for the students to listen and fill in during the first class.

Sociology professor Kathy Grove has an innovative way of forcing her students to read her course syllabus carefully. She uses Blackboard's adaptive feature to set up contingencies. Namely, her online students can gain access to a critical course document only after they have achieved a score of 85% on a quiz that tests their knowledge of the course syllabus. Talk about using the syllabus as a valuable teaching tool!

Welcome to 2008, the International Year of Languages

As we enter 2008, do you know that more than 50% of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world may disappear? That less than a quarter of those languages are currently used in schools and in cyberspace? Never before has our humanity witnessed such a dramatic decline in our linguistic and cultural diversity.

The United Nations has therefore proclaimed 2008 the International Year of Languages. UNESCO, which has been entrusted with the task of coordinating activities for the Year, is determined to fulfill its role as lead agency. Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, offers a couple solutions to the crisis the dying languages in the world: "By encouraging and developing language policies that enable each linguistic community to use its first language, or mother tongue, as widely and as often as possible, including in education, while also mastering a national or regional language and an international language. Also by encouraging speakers of a dominant language to master another national or regional language and one or two international languages. Only if multilingualism is fully accepted can all languages find their place in our globalized world."

As language teachers, we are reminded to increase our activities "to foster respect for, and the promotion and protection of all languages" in the new year and beyond.

To read Mr. Matsuura's message in its entirety, click here.

Click here to learn more about the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.