The ESL Dept. Blog

New Blog

2008-08-17T00:12:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-08-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

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:

No load can exceed 67% in any single semester.
Any single-semester load exceeding 60% requires a one-year temporary contract.
A load exceeding 60% in a single semester must load-average to be no more than 60% for the academic year.
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?

2008-07-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-06T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-22T21:40:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-15T22:19:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
Competence in English sufficient to serve as a suitable linguistic model.
Second language competence.
Experience working with immigrant population, especially Spanish-speaking adult learners.
Experience using computer technology in an instructional setting.
Experience working effectively and professionally with colleagues in a collaborative, collegial environment.
Evidence of a strong commitment to remain current in ESL and its instructional program.
Leadership experience in an educational setting, such as student assessment and placement and curriculum development.
Commitment to a student learning-centered college.

SALARY AND BENEFITS:

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.
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.
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"

2008-06-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-25T21:52:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-19T09:32:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

"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:

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.
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.
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.

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

MICASE

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

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

2008-05-11T19:11:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
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.
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.
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:

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
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.)
term or year persistence: registered and enrolled at census in the following term or year
number of units successfully completed
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:

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)
preparation for transfer: 60 units with transfer-level math and English completed, as opposed to just random courses taken
transfer to a four-year institution
transfer to another two-year institution, i.e. lateral transfer, which should still be counted as success for the student
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)
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:

instructional time
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:

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)
extending learning beyond the classroom (i.e. authentic learning)
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.)
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:

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

Mark then suggested some solutions for community college teachers:

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.
Analyze the task (i.e. decode writing assignments and essay prompts) and hidden expectations.
Prepare students to self-scaffold assignments. The writing process, time line, etc. for a term paper should be a portable skill set.
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

2008-05-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

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:

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

relativity of self and other
time scales
emergentism
unfinalizability
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

2008-04-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

“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

2008-04-13T23:58:00.000-07:00

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.

Guzman Acevedo’s Success Story -- in his own words

2008-04-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

My name is Guzman Acevedo, from Mexico, and I’d like to share my little story at Palomar College. First of all, I arrived in this country in August, 2003. One week later, I enrolled for the fall semester in the evening ESL program.

I began by taking non-credit classes and started in level one, the first step toward something further. I didn’t have any experience in this language, so it was hard to get started. I remember that I was so excited for every new word that I was learning every night. At the end of the semester, I got two awards: one for perfect attendance and one for outstanding achievement. Getting those awards encouraged me to keep going. The next semester, I took level two, and again got a perfect attendance award, and in level three, I got the award for academic achievement.

At this point, I heard about VESL where I could improve my English while learning vocabulary necessary for my career. My goal was to get my electronics certificate because that is what I do for a living, and I wanted to improve my skills for my job because the knowledge I had was very basic. Twelve years before, I had taken an electronics course by mail in Mexico, but it didn’t teach me enough. So in fall, 2005, I took my first credit class—ECHT 100 (Computer Hardware Telecommunication Technician) at Palomar. At this point, my goal was only to get the Electronics Certificate, so in spring, 2006, I took ESL 101, ECHT 20, ECHT 101, ECHT 102, and RCSIS 116, a busy semester for me. In the summer I took ECHT 162 and HE 100; for fall, ECHT 203, ECHT 205, and so on. I received my Certificate of Electronic Computer Hardware/Telecommunication Technician in August, 2007.

In fall, 2007, I took ESL 102 and am currently taking ESL 103, the most advanced ESL course. I’m planning to finish my education as soon as possible, and I am getting closer to my goal with every step. I have a few more classes to take to get my AA degree, and then I plan to go to a university.

When I take a look at what I have learned all this time I’ve been in college, I’m sure that it was worth any sacrifice I made. Now my electronic business is running very well, and I’m able to communicate with colleagues, share experiences that we have in this job, and also understand any information regarding my job. I even started work on computers, in both software and hardware, and that makes me feel great to be able to work on these while I knew nothing about computers when I started at Palomar. Now nothing stops me from improving my life. I’m thankful for all the knowledge I got on this campus because I’m getting the tools that I need to succeed in my life. Special thanks to all my beloved teachers that I’ve had during my learning process, for their patience, for their encouragement when I was down. I know that I still have to keep working to improve what I’ve learned, but I know also that I’m on the way to get where I want to go.

Thanks to Marcel Castillo, Tami Richey, Kevin B., George Hershman, Steve, Mr. Chen, Larry, Silvano, Tracy Fung, Dr. Henson, Joanna Murphy, Colleen Weldele, and to those I forgot to mention, but who were very important in my learning process, thanks to you all.

Sincerely,

Guzman Acevedo

Gloria Villegas: From an ESL Student to an ESL Teacher

2008-03-30T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am Gloria Villegas. I came to the United States in 1980. I am from Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. I immigrated to this country because most of my extended family had already lived here. For many years, my family had been trying to bring us to this country. My grandfather and uncles on my mother’s side used to come and work here, but they never stayed. It was my father’s side of the family that stayed and wanted us to come. My father used to come to this country and work since he was very young. He never wanted to settle in here, so almost all my sisters and brothers were born in Mexico. Only two were born here. One day my father lost his job and went back to Mexico. Then, he decided to come to this country legally. It took ten long years to come as a family and to reunite with my two sisters who had been waiting for us here. By then, I had already turned eighteen years old.

When I moved to the United States, I was in tenth grade in Mexico. My parents decided that I was too old to continue high school here and that I needed to help them support a family of ten. I learned to drive, started working as a machine operator, and worked for three years. Later, I worked for another company in San Marcos inspecting sports clothes. It was in the first company that I was informed that there was a college where I could learn English. And it was in 1982 that I started attending the non-credit ESL classes at Palomar College. At that time the classes were at the corner of Rancho Santa Fe and Mission Road in San Marcos. It was very challenging for me to keep on going because there were many needs in my family. Every day, early in the morning and late in the afternoon, I had to transport my father and sometimes my brothers back and forth between fields and a ranch. I did this for many years until everybody adapted to this country. I kept working full time until all my brothers and sisters completed high school. Then, it was my turn to become a full-time student and to complete my advanced ESL classes, and so I did that.

In Mexico, I always wanted to study. However, I was poor and I was a woman. These characteristics always worked against me. When I came to this country, I didn’t think that it would be possible for me to get an education. Again, I was a woman, poor, not young, unable to speak English, and not well-informed. By then, however, I had learned that persistence was another one of my characteristics. I kept taking all the ESL classes, and then the non-credit program moved to the main campus. This was an advantage to all the students, especially to me because I became more informed about the different opportunities that were available for students who completed the advanced ESL courses. When I finished ESL, I decide to take regular classes. It was difficult at the beginning and very discouraging at times. However, I found very good teachers, counselors, and fellow students, who in many ways helped me to succeed. I graduated from Palomar College in 1991, transferred to Cal Sate San Marcos, and graduated from there with a teaching degree in1994.

Now, I am working as an ESL teacher at Vista Adult Education and at Palomar College’s Escondido Center, where I teach a non-credit class. This is such a pleasure for me, and it also keeps me motivated all the time because learning a second language is a life-long journey.

Elena Ibarra: A Successful Former ESL Student

2008-03-23T23:40:00.000-07:00

Elena Ibarra started out taking our intermediate ESL level 5 and level 6 classes back when those classes were still noncredit in our dept. She then progressed to our credit Academic ESL Program, completing both ESL 102 and ESL 103. Trying to get more English exposure and to learn to communicate faster, Elena also took dancing and swimming classes.

In 2001, Elena graduated from Cal State University San Marcos with a BA in visual and performing arts.

Currently, Elena works full time as an Information Services Network Assistant for the Palomar Community College District. In this position, she has had the opportunity to assist Network Specialists in the day-to-day operations of the enterprise data communications network and devices; to perform a variety of technical tasks servicing faculty, staff, students, and vendors in the entire district, such as installation and troubleshooting of networked devices, peripheral equipment and software applications; to provide technical support; and to respond to requests from district users regarding enterprise operations and procedures.

Elena has previously worked for our dept. as an ESL Computer Lab Technician where she had the chance to work one-on-one with students and instructors.

To continue her academic pursuit, Elena is working to attain an MBA degree. She would love to be able to work with students again.

Elena lives in Temecula, California, with her 13-years-old son, her mom, and her dog Pepper. When not working, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading, going for rides on a bicycle, and salsa dancing.

ESL Success Stories

2008-03-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

As you know, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office has requested success stories of ESL students who started out in a noncredit program and have reached their goals. Thanks to the great response to my email to the whole dept., we have so far identified the following students, both former and current, that fit the bill.

Marcela Gomez, who started out in non-credit ESL classes, later became our very own, first-ever full-time ESL Student Specialist, and is now getting her master's degree in counseling from USD.
Jose Luis Ramirez, who a product of Palomar College and is doing very well as our full-time Non-Credit Matriculation Assistant.
Claudia Covarrubias, who started out in our Fallbrook program and is currently working part-time driving a bus for Special ED of the Fallbrook Union School District and taking classes, according to a Program Assistant in Fallbrook.
Blanca Carrasco, who is about to enter an MA program in sociology.
Jorge Villalobos, who started out as a level-3 student and is now a full-time Program Assistant while pursing a college degree at CSUSM.
Juan Gonzalez, who started out in our level 5, became our ESL Student Specialist based in Escondido, and is our newest full-time Program Assistant in San Marcos.
Patricia Alvarado, who has been our only full-time Program Assistant in Escondido for a couple of years now.
Elena Ibarra, who now works full-time as an Information Services Network Assistant in the IS Dept. at Palomar.
Elio Reyes, who, while taking our ESL classes back in mid-1990s, applied to become a US citizen, took the test, passed, and was sworn in as a US Citizen. He finished his ESL classes, opened his own core drilling business, and is now making a very good living.
Roberto Martinez, who used to work in our dept. as a student employee and is now teaching math in a high school, according to his sister.
Rigoberto Reyes, who also used to work for us as a student employee.
Judith Marquez, who started out in our Academic ESL Program and is now working in the Foreign Languages Dept.'s Lab.
Martin Castaneda, who used to work part-time as our lab assistant for quite some time.
Leticia Feria, who finished the VESL Cosmetology Program and entered cosmetology school right away. After successfully passing her licensing exam on the first try, she started working at a shop in Escondido. Two years later, she bought the shop. She later hired one of our other VESL Cosmetology students, Rosa Navarro, who worked in Leticia’s shop for quite a while.
Guzman Acevedo, who started out as a non-credit student, progressed on to take VESL, and has been taking Academic ESL for the past three semesters. He is so self-motivated and motivating to other ESL students because unlike them, he is not only learning a new language, but he is also dealing with getting in and out of his wheelchair. He also owns a TV/VCR repair business in the area, according to one of his former teachers.
Miriam Synder, who is now one of our INEA teachers in Ramona.
Laura Ruiz, who is another one of our INEA teachers in Escondido.

Success stories of these and other students will be used in an advertising campaign by the Chancellor's Office to help educate the legislature and the public on the benefits of basic skills instruction including ESL. The power of such stories, emphasizing the need for special programs like ours to help guide immigrant students through the maze and encourage them to achieve their academic goals, is without equal.

Thus, if you have such students who are willing to share their stories, please send their names and stories to Anne Stadler by Friday, 3/21. If each one-page bio could come with a photo of the student, it would be just fantastic.

Thanks for any help you can lend this "success project."

Amazing Students

2008-03-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday, our dept. selected five finalists to submit for the Foundation to process as this year's ESL Resident Scholarship recipients. In all, 11 colleagues recommended 14 amazing students to be considered for the special award. Here is what the teachers wrote about the five winners:

From Katrina Tamura, NESL 303 teacher:
I nominate Zoila Amador for the ESL Resident Scholarship. Zoila is an outstanding student who never misses a day or an assignment. She is a leader in the classroom and acts as a mentor to her classmates in need. Although she maintains a busy work schedule, she attends Palomar College ESL classes 6 days a week (General ESL, Computers, and Citizenship). She is a competent self-advocate and a truly self-made success in life. (Additional note by the teacher: Although the following bio refers to her residency status, I did not solicit that information. I got this information from her response to class discussion questions: What obstacles have you faced? How did you over come them?)

When Zoila was a child, she dreamed of becoming a dressmaker or a nurse. However, her parents didn’t believe in educating women. Zoila says that she was sent to live with her uncle when she was 2 years old. She returned to her parents’ home only to serve as the household servant. Her uncle died in 1979 and she was left with nobody to call family. This same year, she met her future husband. They eloped in 1980. Zoila was then 17 years old. She and her husband decided to come to the United States. They were met with many unexpected challenges and obstacles. They were forced to live in the hills without shelter and suffered thirst and hunger for the first few months they were here. They didn’t speak English either, but Zoila and her husband were determined to work, live, and have a family in the United States.

By 1983, Zoila was the adoring mother of two. She now faced the challenge of working and taking care of her two young children at the same time. Saving money for her family’s future was a great motivator for Zoila. She says that this was difficult, but not impossible.

In 1987, Zoila and her husband received their green cards. She then learned how to drive a car and got her drivers license. Next, Zoila and her husband bought their house. For many years, Zoila continued to work hard to build solid foundation for her family. This, Zoila says, is why she never went to school.

Now, Zoila’s children are grown up and self-sufficient. She is ready to pursue the education that, as a child, she was told she could never have. She now has time for school and has set new goals for herself. She wants to learn English grammar and how to use the computer. She would like to explore a career in nursing. In addition, she wants to become a citizen of this country. Zoila has faced many challenges and has reached every goal she has made for herself. I have no doubt that she will be a role model for other students at Palomar as she pursues her new goal of receiving an education.

From John Mullens, ESL 35 teacher:
It is my opinion that Abigail Avila is an excellent choice for a resident scholarship. She is one of my best students, if not the best. She has yet to miss class, and she’s a model student in class. Ms. Avila is a very enthusiastic student who is always willing to participate in class and offer support to her fellow classmates. She has a desire to get a B.A. in the future; therefore, this scholarship would help her to achieve that purpose, as well as encourage her in whatever future endeavors she may pursue.

Also from Tracy Fung, ESL 20 and ESL 34 teacher:
I would like to nominate Abigail Avila for the ESL Resident Scholarship. Last semester Abigail successfully completed my ESL 34 class, and this semester she is taking my ESL 20 class and proving again to be one of the top students. Abigail is never absent and always an energetic, enthusiastic addition to my classes. She can always be counted on to participate, as well as to put extra effort into completing assignments. Her grades are consistently high, and she is a dedicated, hard-working student. She is one of the few night students who takes more than one class per semester, and she currently studies for 4 hours two nights a week and 2.5 hours the other two nights a week. This does not detract from her commitment to each of her classes, however. Abigail is a model student and worthy of receiving a scholarship to recognize her hard work.

From Joanna Murphy, NESL 301 teacher:
I would like to nominate Omar Bello for the ESL Resident Scholarship. Omar was an accounting student at a university in Mexico. He worked as an accountant in Mexico but the salary was very low. He came here to earn more money so he can help his family in Mexico. He is in my level one class and is an excellent student. His attendance is very good; his tests grades, high, and he is very helpful to the other students. He finishes his work fast and then tries to help his classmates. His aspirations are to perfect himself here - in English and in accounting so he can work professionally. I think he would be a deserving recipient of the scholarship.

From Elena Lattarulo, ESL 36 teacher:
I would like to recommend Pablo Lorenzo for the ESL scholarship. Pablo is a quiet but hard-working student. In spite of his shyness, he is a pleasure to have in class as he frequently volunteers to answer the most difficult questions. He is patient with other students and goes above and beyond the call in order to stay after class to lend a helping hand. Pablo consistently receives the highest scores on quizzes and tests. His attendance is outstanding and in spite of a heavy work schedule never misses a beat.

From Marianne Uribe, NESL 300 teacher:
For my computer class, I nominate Saturnino Alonso Reyes. He is an excellent, hardworking, and very deserving student. He comes to class consistently and is motivated to do well in class. He takes every effort to do his best, helps others while in class, and serves as a role model to other students.

Listed below are the other 9 nominees and their teachers:

Mareli Cruz, recommended by Marianne Uribe, NESL 300 teacher
Daniella Jordan, recommended by John Mullens, ESL 35 teacher
Miguel Ramirez, recommended by Jan Lenhert, NESL 303 teacher
Alejandro Sanchez, recommended by Terri McMurtry, NESL 302 teacher
Omar Santos, recommended by Elena Lattarulo, ESL 36 teacher
Maria del Carmen Sosa, recommended by Elizabeth Lohr, NESL 303 teacher
Laura Valdez, recommended by Terri McMurtry, NESL 302 teacher
Ileana Valencia, recommended by Susana Davis, NESL 301 teacher
Maria Venegas, recommended by Heather Weldele, NESL 302 teacher.

Please congratulate our finalists as well as all the nominees. These are all role models we need in our classes. It is my hope that their examples will continue to shine. In the coming weeks, we will most likely showcase some of their stories on our dept. web site.

My heartfelt appreciation also goes to all the colleagues who have taken the time to identify their best students and write the bios and recommendations. I hope with your continued nurturing and encouragement, your finalist will not let us down, your nominees will realize that it's already a great honor to be recommended, and your other students will learn from your best student and work together to have a successful semester.

Dowell Myers' Latest View of the Future

2008-03-02T21:58:00.000-08:00

Professor Dowell Myers of the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California is a respected scholar with visions for our future. Last week, at the ACCE (Association of Community and Continuing Education) statewide annual conference in Palm Springs, he gave a dynamic presentation on the same topic as addressed in his new book Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America.

Dr. Myers offers outstanding information about the retirement of Boomers and the need for educated immigrants, among others. Check out his PowerPoint here.

Multiple Intelligences, Adult Education and ESL

2008-02-24T18:40:00.000-08:00

ESL Faculty:

I teach the lowest level--N ESL--where I often find applications of Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory helpful. This note is about an online course and a book about the application of MI to adult ESL students. I couldn't technically forward all the material (it either won't cut and paste or is blocked by filters) so just this here will suffice. The book, incidentally, has one very specific section titled: "MI-Inspired Language Arts and ESOL Lessons." (The section starts with a writing lesson.)

Information about the Online Course and Book:

Contact Kaye Beall at http://us.f502.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=kaye_beall@worlded.org with questions.

Adult Multiple Intelligences and Differentiated Instruction Course Dates: March 12–May 13, 2008; Online chats during Lessons 3, 4, and 5
Course Description: Research conducted by the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy shows that instructional practices inspired by Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory resulted in high levels of authentic instruction and student engagement. Integrate your understanding of Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory with the power of differentiated instruction in this facilitated, eight-session course. You’ll learn how to apply MI theory and differentiate instruction for all levels of adult basic education and English for speakers of other languages. . . .
Required Text: Viens, Julie and Silja Kallenbach. Multiple Intelligences and Adult Literacy: A Sourcebook for Practitioners. (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004. Copies of the required textbook can be obtained from the publisher, Teachers College Press (TCP), the publisher at http://store.tcpress.com/0807743461.shtml. The cost is $27.95 per copy.

KenS

Employers Give Advice to Colleges

2008-02-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here's another article of interest to piggyback on Ken's recommended report. This time, though, it is about new college graduates and employers' assessment of them.

"How Should Colleges Assess And Improve Student Learning?" is a nine-page analysis of a survey on more than 300 US employers conducted late last year on behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Two pieces of advice from these employers interest me tremendously:

Multiple-choice tests are seen as ineffective.
Writing is one of the areas of learning most in need of improvement.

As a language teacher, I've always believed that one's writing ability is the litmus test to determine whether one has truly mastered a modern language.

In our ESL context, it is writing that holds most of our students back, as we see them drop out due to failure in writing, or worse, they pass classes without being able to write well at their level. What can we do about this in order to better educate our student population?

Report says low education of immigrants, not motivation, accounts for poverty and welfare

2008-02-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

ESL Faculty:

This report may interest some staff:

Immigrants in the United States, 2007 - A Profile of America's Foreign-Born Population Camarota, Steven A.Center for Immigration Studies, Backgrounder, November 2007, online edition, 44p"This Backgrounder provides a detailed picture of the number and socio-economic status of the nation’s immigrant or foreign-born population, both legal and illegal. The data was collected by the Census Bureau in March 2007.Among the report’s findings:• The nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.• Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13." Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies. Go to the report at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back1007.pdf

KenS

ESL Resident Scholarships

2008-02-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

Every spring, Palomar's Foundation administers several "ESL Resident Scholarships," formerly known as "Resident Alien Scholarships," to ESL students. According to Kim Hartwell of the Foundation, the criteria have always been:

Is enrolled in an ESL class
Demonstrates financial need
Is a California resident
Shows initiative and motivation in the classrooms
Shows academic promise.

This year, each recipient will be awarded $200 on the college's Scholarship Night in May, which is always quite a celebratory event with the friends and families of all the scholarship awardees on hand to share the joy.

The word "scholarship" in the title of this particular award is a misnomer, though, in that this is not your usual scholarship that everyone can apply for. Rather, it is an ESL-faculty-nominated award of free money for a select few of our deserving students.

The nominees also do not go through the college's Scholarship Committee. Instead, we in the ESL Dept. review the selections, approve them, and forward to the Foundation a list of final winners along with their bios to process. It has been decided that at our next monthly dept. meeting on March 7, we will decide on this year's recipients of the ESL Resident Scholarships.

Therefore, if you have a student in your class who has wowed you in a significant way or has been an inspiration for his or her classmates, I urge you to write a brief bio of this meritorious student and submit it as your nomination. Please give your written nomination to your program coordinator no later than our next dept. meeting on March 7.

It appears that in an effort to boost attendance and push student success, we have put too much emphasis on problems (like our attendance policy with the threat to punish students with excessive absences by dropping them or our early alert system to intervene in the cases of unsuccessful students), and have consequently neglected positive reinforcement. As we publicize the ESL Resident Scholarships across the whole dept. and seek to reward role models in our various programs, our impact on student success can hopefully become even stronger.

Converting New File Formats

2008-02-10T22:02:00.000-08:00

Lately, I have often been asked how to open a document that was saved with the .docx file extension. In fact, with Windows Vista installed in all the labs on campus, more and more colleagues who still have Windows XP are finding that they cannot open a document or a spreadsheet sent to them from an Office 2007 origin. The difference between your frustration and a solution is about a click away: "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats."

After you download and install the free compatibility pack onto your computer, which should be a rather straighforward process, you will be able to open all Office 2007 files including Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.

By the way, faculty members can purchase Office 2007 for about $45 from the Foundation for California Community Colleges. Click here and then make sure to click on "Work at Home" for faculty and staff, if you are interested in knowing how to get this special deal.

Super Tuesday for Our CCs

2008-02-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

Even though some of us may be as cynical about politicians' tactics in this election year as the above Non Sequitur cartoon shows, we will be voting on a special initiative on the upcoming Super Tuesday--Proposition 92. If passed, Prop. 92 will give more students a chance to go to college by lowering community college fees and limiting future fee increases. It will also ensure that our community college system receives adequate and stable funding.

As we all know, many educational options are offered by California community colleges, including academic and vocational training programs that may lead to occupational certificates or an Associate of Arts degree.

There are 109 community colleges and many off-campus centers that are administered by 71 districts located throughout the state. These campuses serve more than 1.6 million students every year. Community college campuses are designed to be near the state's primary residential centers and are within easy driving distance for most students.

Community college students often complete the first two years of a university education and, if they meet certain requirements, can transfer to the California State University, the University of California, or an independent institution to complete a four-year degree.

The community colleges also offer remedial instruction in conjunction with the local school districts, instruction in English as a second language, adult non-credit instruction, and support services to help students succeed at the postsecondary level.

In short, community colleges count a great deal, not only in the lives of members of minority groups and those from low-income families, but also increasingly among America's middle class.

In my opinion, the timing of Prop. 92 cannot be better. California's community colleges need to lead among the nation's 1,200 community colleges in order to strengthen themselves, to be relied upon more to win the skills race, and to continue to be key to shoring up the US economy, particularly as we appear to head to a recession year, too.

At the national level, there has been a push--supported by such locally known names as George Boggs, president of the American Association of Community Colleges and former president of Palomar College, and Augustine Gallego, chancelor emeritus of the San Diego Community College District--for two years of college as the minimum standard for all Americans. Passing Prop. 92 would facilitate such a sensible push.

Unlike some other measures on the ballot, Prop. 92 is truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people." It is supported by a broad coalition of business and labor organizations, community college leaders, advocates, local trustees and students, including the San Diego East County Chamber of Commerce, the San Diego Community College District AFT Faculty Guild, local CSEA #707, California Labor Federation, Sacramento Metro Chamber, United Farm Workers, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, United Teachers Los Angeles, California Church IMPACT, the National Latina Business Women Association, California Federation of Teachers, the South Bay Association of Chambers of Commerce, the California School Employees Association, and the Los Angeles College Faculty Guild.

A rally was recently held on our campus to support Prop. 92. It was hosted by SDICCCA -- the San Diego and Imperial Counties Community Colleges Association, representing the region's six community college districts and colleges: Grossmont-Cuyamaca, Imperial Valley, MiraCosta, Palomar, Southwestern, and San Diego CCD (Mesa, Miramar and City Colleges). Here's a videotape of that rally, if you are interested.

If you need to educate yourself more on Prop. 92, please go to prop92yes.com.

For the condition of our community colleges and the quality of life for those who depend on our colleges, I strongly urge you to vote "yes" on Prop. 92 on Super Tuesday. Let's show that we CARE about this one.

Thanks!

San Marcos P.M. Teachers Met

2008-01-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-17T15:09:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

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.

BICS and CALP

2007-12-30T23:12:00.000-08:00

The distinction between basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) was introduced by Prof. Jim Cummins of the University of Toronto in 1979 in order to draw educators’ attention to the timelines and challenges that second language learners encounter as they attempt to catch up to their peers in academic aspects of the school language. BICS refers to conversational fluency in a language while CALP refers to students’ ability to understand and express, in both oral and written modes, concepts and ideas that are relevant to success in school.

The original version of the BICS/CALP distinction has been criticized by several scholars over the years for various reasons. For example, Prof. Rudy Troike of the University of Arizona, then of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, wrote a critique with a somewhat satirical title, "SCALP - Socio-Cultural Aspects of Language Proficiency." In it, Prof. Troike argues that sociolinguistic factors, which are missing from Prof. Cummins' theory, may play an important role in academic achievement.

In his latest 14-page article, titled "BICS and CALP: Empirical and Theoretical Status of the Distinction" and published in Street, B. & Hornberger, N. H. (Eds.). (2008). Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 2: Literacy, Prof. Cummins addresses many critiques of the BICS/CALP distinction but insists that "the BICS/CALP distinction was not proposed as an overall theory of language proficiency but as a very specific conceptual distinction that has important implications for policy and practice. It has drawn attention to specific ways in which educators’ assumptions about the nature of language proficiency and the development of L2 proficiency have prejudiced the academic development of bilingual students."

One such specific example cited by Cummins comes from a study done in 1996 which shows that a couple of years after a group of second generation Salvadorean children started school in Washington, D.C., they acquired native-like spoken English. Because of the lack of one-on-one interactions between the teachers and the pupils, a sample of fluent student speech (BICS) was often mistaken for proof of full language fluency, which should have included both conversational and academic English (CALP).

Here and now, with the number of Generation 1.5 students entering our classrooms on the rise, we have noticed the common feature these students share: stronger BICS and weaker CALP.

Knowing the distinction is one thing. Knowing how to close the gap in our classrooms is quite another. Cummins suggests the following ways:

extensive engaged reading because academic language is primarily found in written texts
collaborative learning and talk about text because this helps students more fully comprehend the academic language found in their extensive reading
writing about issues that matter to bilingual students because this enables them to express their identities through language
opportunities for teachers and others to provide feedback on writing because this further develops the students' expression of self.

What other ways would you suggest? Do you see any use of the distinction between BICS and CALP for yourself?

A Timeless Manual for ESL Teachers

2007-12-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Originally written by and for the Peace Corps 15 years ago, Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Large, Multilevel Classes is chock-full of ideas for any ESL teacher even today. The 11 chapters on 147 pages discuss topics ranging from building a class community to assessing learning outcomes. As our dept. takes part in the Basic Skills Initiative and tries hard to increase student retention and success rates, this timeless manual is worth thumbing through again. It could have practical implications for our classrooms.

The Shape of Things to Come?

2007-12-16T23:17:00.000-08:00

Governor Schwarzenegger is set to declare a fiscal emergency. This is not science fiction. Due to a huge budget shortfall, he has already asked state agencies to prepare for an across-the-board budget cut of 10% in 2008. For details, read the news story here.

Honoring Katheryn

2007-12-09T22:46:00.001-08:00

After serving the college for 33 years, Katheryn Garlow will retire later this month. On this bittersweet occasion, I am taking the liberty of publishing this letter written by Shayla on behalf of our dept. to nominate Katheryn as this year's "Alumna of the Year." As we know, Katheryn received the honor at the college's graduation ceremony in May.

During the five months as the dept. chair, I have had numerous chances to interact with Katheryn directly. My impression of Katheryn as a true professional who cares passionately about serving all students has been strengthened. There is never a trace of elitism in her as evidenced by her advocating for the most downtrodden members of our community as well as by the homely furnishings in her office as a dean. Her will to do what is right instead of rigidly following the books has also been equally impressive. If Palomar Colleg is a people's college, as former college president George Boggs put it, then Katheryn Garlow is a people's dean.

Since Katheryn is loath to be the center of attention at a party setting, the Instructional Services has planned an Open House on Tuesday, December 11, from 1:00pm – 3:00pm, in Room AA-109, in lieu of a special party. Please plan to attend to enjoy each other’s company – or say good-bye to our long-time colleague and leader Katheryn. You can stop by for a moment or the whole time to spend some time with Katheryn before she retires to New Mexico.

According to the Division Secretary, Anna Hilton (ext. 2251), there are a couple of ways that you can contribute to the Open House. Food – bring one of your favorite appetizers or desserts, or Anna will be taking donations to contribute to a group gift that will be purchased by Vice President of Instruction Berta Cuaron.

A Full-time Position

2007-12-02T22:21:00.000-08:00

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
(Refer to position number 5122 on application)
Date opened: November 30, 2007
First screening deadline: 4:30 pm on Friday, February 22, 2008
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
Palomar College is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE)

THE POSITION: This is a full-time, tenure-track, 10-month-per-year position scheduled to begin August 22, 2008.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: 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 Center. 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 Center. Participate fully in departmental activities and college governance and hold regular office hours. 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.

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. Supervisory experience in an educational setting.
4. Experience in student assessment and placement.
5. Second language competence.
6. Experience working with immigrant population, especially Spanish-speaking adult learners.
7. Experience using computer technology in an instructional setting.
8. Experience working effectively and professionally with colleagues in a collaborative, collegial environment.
9. Commitment to a student learning-centered college.
10. Evidence of a strong commitment to remain current in ESL and its instructional program.

For more details such as how to apply, see the complete job announcement here.

A Few Items of Interest

2007-11-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

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

Our Roots and Our Commitments

2007-11-18T17:52:00.000-08:00

Our History

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

Our Mission Statement

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

Our Vision Statement

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

Our Tag Line

creating paths for a better tomorrow

Contract Instructors' Team-Building Commitment

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

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

Hiring Adjunct Faculty

2007-11-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Definition of an Opening

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

Announcing an Opening

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

Hiring Current Adjunct

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

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

Here are the pertinent articles in the contract:

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

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

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

After the program coordinator makes the selection, he or she

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

Hiring New Adjunct

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

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

Our Mottos

2007-11-04T22:31:00.000-08:00

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

Shayla:

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

Lee:

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

Nimoli:

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

Lynne:

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

Marty:

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

Colleen:

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

Gary:

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

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

Welcome Back

2007-10-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

As you heard from President Deegan in his email sent around on Friday afternoon, most of the college was going to re-open tomorrow. The final decision came earlier this afternoon confirming that starting tomorrow (10/29), all Palomar sites will resume operations except Ramona, which will re-open on Tuesday, and Fallbrook, which will re-open on Wednesday.

This has been a very difficult week for everyone in our district, and our department is no exception. Starley Dullien, who teaches in the night General ESL Program in San Marcos, lost her Ramona home to the devastating fires. Many of you had to evacuate. Many more have spent this weekend cleaning up the ash and soot.

The extent to which our ESL students were affected by the fires will become known once classes resume. Please keep in mind that Counseling Services, Health Services, and the Office of Student Affairs all have plans to provide for the needs of impacted students. As we go back to a heavy workload, Vice President of Instruction Berta Curon wants us to be flexible and sensitive and "create an environment that will be crucial to assisting and supporting all students through the end of the semester, but particularly those who have been displaced from their homes and have experienced loss."

As with any natural disaster, the wildfires this week truly brought out the best in all of us. I was heartened by the caring ways that each of you displayed during this emergency. Via emails and phone calls, colleagues inquired about each other's situations, provided updates, and offered help. Some, like Kevin Staff, who teaches in the night General ESL Program in San Marcos, even volunteered at various community centers for evacuated families and their children. Some kept their instruction going by receiving student papers and giving assignments through email and the Blackboard online course site.

Students cared about their ESL teachers, too. Many emailed their teachers to ask how they were doing. Joyce Rogers, who teaches in Fallbrook, accepted an offer from a former Vietnamese student to stay with her after the Great Fallbrook Evacuation. And Joyce had her like 10 years ago!

The union leadership on Tuesday and the college administration on Friday both responded positively to a legitimate concern of many adjunct colleagues: a possible loss of wages and salary. According to President Deegan's email this Friday, "We want to assure you that all District employees will be compensated for their assigned work schedule during the time in which the college and/or education center/sites is closed."

So, it is in this caring and supportive community spirit that I gladly welcome you back to work, albeit starting on various days depending on your work site. But remember that special arrangements will be made for leaves needed to recover from the fires. If you need such assistance, please let your coordinator or supervisor know. I am also available via email or at ext. 2273.

A Conference Report (depite the Fires)

2007-10-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was a fun one (until the fires broke out, of course). Part of the fun was due to San Diego Regional CATESOL Conference that took place on a beautiful day and on the gorgeous campus of Southwestern College. In addition to running into old friends and making new ones, I really enjoyed the company of like-minded educators. I managed to make it to a few presentations and am excited to report the ideas I learned or relearned.

Keynote: Learning IN English: Content-Based Instruction

The plenary speaker was Professor Frank Noji of Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he spearheaded a content-based ESL curriculum revolving around a different theme for each semester, not unlike themes for Palomar College’s Campus Exploration. The innovation was born out of a need ten years ago to save the ESL Dept. because it would have been wiped out along with a forced disappearance of other college remedial courses. Frank argued that “ESL ≠ remedial” and created the content-based program to prove it. Over the years, Frank and his colleagues have been successful in shifting their model from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” The purpose of their syllabi is now aligned with those of mainstream courses, aiming for a rooted relevance. That is, they link the skills learned in the ESL classroom to the college courses the students will soon take. Instead of “finding the topic sentence” and other easy-to-assess comprehension questions, they now utilize writings, seminars, and poster sessions to gauge the comprehension of a topic at hand. Instead of spending much time explaining why a main idea is a main idea, they now require getting information from a text and using that to complete a task. The thematic input now drives the instruction of grammar and vocabulary, both of which are in turn practiced in writing tasks. Frank reported that the purposefulness in such integrated content-based instruction has enabled the students to converge on similar cultural literacy, reduce the noise in reading texts, and navigate reading more easily. Even though I wonder if the students won’t become bored by an extended theme throughout a long semester (for example, the historical perspective of food, the psychological perspective of food, the nutritional perspective of food, the culinary perspective of food, the cultural perspective of food, etc., etc.), I am nonetheless very impressed by Frank’s approach to the overriding goal of having ESL students become savvy language learners.

A few interesting facts in Frank’s ESL Dept.:

about 700 students, 50% of whom are international students, 30% Gen 1.5 students, and 20% immigrants
each faculty member takes 3 to 5 Gen 1.5 students under his/her wing to advise them
reading as the central part of the ESL classroom

Learning English through WebQuest

Although I was familiar with WebQuest, I had not created one for my students. So I decided to check out this workshop provided by graduate student Yi-Chia Lin of Alliant International University. Sure enough, she reviewed the usual five basic sections of a WebQuest:

introduction
task
process
evaluation
conclusion

I learned about four websites one can go to create WebQuests:

QuestGarden (http://questgarden.com/, fee-based with 30-day free trial)
InstantWebQuestV2 (http://www.zunal.com/, free)
TeacherWeb (http://teacherweb.com/wq_home.html, free)
PHPWebQuest (http://eduforge.org/projects/phpwebquest/, free)

Writing Peer Evaluation with Google Documents

Also facilitated by Ms. Yi-Chia Lin, this workshop introduced the Google Documents online that can be used by writing teachers who don’t want to spend much time doing peer review in class. Here are the major steps:

open a free Google account at http://www.gmail.com/
go to “Documents” from within the Google account
click to upload students’ writing
click to share students’ writing
type students’ email addresses
type a message to students

Students will then receive the email from you with a link. As a peer reviewer, the student will click “Indent more” and type his or her answers in the box. You as the teacher can click “Insert” and choose “Comment” to comment on the peer reviewer’s comment.

Based on my limited hands-on experience during this workshop, I would suggest not assigning a group of larger than 5 members to review one paper, especially not having them access the paper at the same time. The way Google Documents handled the roomful of participants, it still looked like a Beta version.

TELL-IG

During lunch, I sat on the table that was supposed to the meeting place for the Technology Enhanced Language Learning Interest Group (TELL-IG) Rap Session. The prepared agenda was abandoned due to the noise level in the large dining hall. However, I did learn that TELI-IG now has a new website at http://www.tellig.org/, along with its listserv at http://lists.catesol.org/read/?forum=tell-ig and its discussion group at http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/tell-ig.

Take Action! 20 Minute Problem Solving

Too often, we complain without taking any action. Four ESL teachers gave a poster presentation about a useful solution called “NAB IT,” an acronym of the following steps:

Name (put a name to the problem)
Analyze the problem (causes, effects)
Brainstorm solutions (no judging)
Identify two solutions to try &
Think them through (set a date to report back)

Once a week for 20 minutes, groups of five students can form problem-solving circles, where each member plays a distinct role: a problem poser, a leader, a timekeeper, a facilitator, and a record keeper.

Simple Strategies for Effective and Authentic Writing Assessments

Jan Forstrom of Continuing Education of San Diego CCD presented ways to give effective and authentic writing assessments to her adult ed students. To be effective, a writing task cannot be on just any topic and must be appropriate to the student level. To be authentic means that the writing task can be replicated outside of the classroom, not just one that asks to describe something in the classroom, for example. Effective writing assessments also need to be fair. For example, “Christmas around the World” is not free of bias, so it is not fair. In short, writing assessments need to be meaningful to the students so that they want to communicate. In addition, clear, exact directions must be given either orally or in writing. The most important step in creating writing assessments, however, is choosing measurable objectives to develop a rubric to determine how all of our students are to be graded. The rubric is what enables our ESL students to receive meaningful feedback. A rubric covers form, content, and language. For example, for form/mechanics, we can have—

For content, we might have the following:

90% correctly completed as instructed =12 points
80% 10 points
70% 8 points
60% 6 points
50% 4 points
Less than 50% 0 points

For language, we may use something like this: Once we have a specific rubric developed to assess the form, content, and language for a particular paper, even the students can grade each other’s papers, knowing what circling a certain point means. Here is an example of a grading form for a two-paragraph essay:

There is always an amount of subjectivity associated with grading a written piece. But Jan suggested that when in doubt, teachers give the student the point; that way, we can help to build their confidence in writing.

CATESOL 2007 San Diego Regional Conference

2007-10-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

The third Saturday in October has been one of my favorite days of the year because it is a day of professional rejuvenation for me. I am talking about the day for our annual San Diego Regional CATESOL Conference. This year, the day is just around the corner, namely, this Saturday, 10/20.

The theme for this year's conference is "Learning IN English: Content-Based Instruction." The keynote speaker is Frank Noji, a professor at Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he teaches and coordinates the ESOL program. Presently, he is serving as chair of the Languages, Linguistics and Literature Department at Kapiolani Community College and is responsible for developing an ESL teacher-training certificate program. He taught in the Philippines and Japan as well as in public middle school and high school in Hawaii. He designed and developed the sustained content program in 1997 for Kapiolani Community College. Since 1997, he has done classroom-oriented research to make modifications on the curriculum. Recently, he has introduced the Opportunities model to the program and is presently introducing purposefulness into content-based instruction.

If you wish to network, to check out promising summer textbooks, and/or to learn new strategies and innovative ideas for your classroom, then you will do no wrong by heading down to Southwestern College in Chula Vista this Saturday and spending a fruitful day there.

Click here for the conference flyer with the day's schedule. Click here for a partial list of the presentations.

Hope to see you all at the conference!

Assessing Student Learning Outcomes

2007-10-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe that we’re at the midpoint of the semester already. Are we clear if we are effecting significant academic gains? To find out, many colleagues will give a midterm exam soon, especially if they have not given more frequent assessments in the form of weekly tests or biweekly writing assignments, for example.

Indeed, student learning outcomes are a big deal not only for individuals’ continuous improvement, but also for our college’s accreditation. For example, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) recently required that our college respond to the relevant ACCJC 2002 Standards by quantifying how our courses and programs have done all of the following:

1. define expected student learning outcomes
2. define assessment of expected student learning outcomes
3. assess student learning outcomes
4. analyze the results of assessment
5. plan and implement changes to pedagogy, facilities, etc. to improve learning

Under the leadership of Marty Furch, all of the courses in our dept. have defined expected student learning outcomes (i.e. “specific course objectives” in the course outline). You can access the CurricUnet and do a course search to see these objectives for yourself. We have also identified appropriate assessment methodologies for these outcomes in our course outlines. Full-time contract instructors have worked together to update the course outlines for the six levels of the courses in our general ESL program. Teachers in the 4:30 and 7 p.m. general ESL programs in San Marcos have been working hard to revise their grammar exit tests as a way to measure part of the student learning outcomes. Although our dept. as a whole may still need to do more of the components #4 and #5 above, I am sure that as individual teachers, many colleagues have taken these steps to reflect on the results of a class assessment and to change their own approach to teaching when appropriate.

If you have a savvy tip that makes student assessment meaningful, email it to me or just enter your entry as a comment to leave below.

Another grammar question?

2007-10-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to those of you who've talked to me about RAIN and to Lee for his nicely documented written response. As Lee accurately points out, many of these "grammar" issues are really usage questions, and I have another such issue.

When writing a bunch of test questions where students were supposed to respond with either the simply present tense or the present progressive, I wrote the following two sentences.

1a Albertson's ____________________________ (sell) many kinds of food.

1b This week-end, they _____________________ (sell) hamburgers outside.

It wasn't until I'd handed out the papers that I realized that I'd switched from a singular noun to a plural pronoun, yet even after re-reading the sentences several times, I could not refer to Albertson's as an "it" in the second sentence. Nonetheless, I had expected students to use the 3rd person singular form of the verb in sentence 1a.

Comments?

Working with the Bookstore

2007-09-30T23:47:00.000-07:00

As student enrollment continues to climb, a few departments have been having a hard time finding enough textbooks on the bookstore shelves. Our dept. is one of those hard-hit ones. To solve this problem, the bookstore and our dept. have come to an agreement for spring 2008 textbook ordering.

The bookstore will not use its sales history data in ordering our textbooks. Instead, they will order according to the “enrollment estimate” that we list on each order form, a.k.a. textbook course adoption.
We will not make changes once a course adoption is ordered.
The bookstore will extend our course adoption due date one month later than for other department.
Both the bookstore and our dept. will assess the agreement results after spring 08 sales are complete.

Number one above is of particular significance because, as you know, the bookstore has chronically short-ordered our books, citing its historical sales data. Under this agreement, the bookstore will give up that old practice. However, we also now have an added responsibility for giving an accurate estimate of how many books are needed on each order.

The bookstore has also developed a couple of electronic ways for submitting book orders. Monica will soon let the coordinators know which way our dept. will go in ordering our spring 08 books.

Even if no books are required, a book adoption form still has to be filled out in order for the bookstore to offer that information to the students. If a class does not require a textbook, simply write “No Text Required” across the order form.

Frank Mendez, Textbook Manager (ext. 2225), and Juan Serna, Textbook Supervisor (ext. 2223), are still our best contacts in the bookstore. If the future, if a textbook is ever sold out again, please let your coordinator know the exact number still needed, and Frank or Juan will promptly place an order for you after receiving an email from your coordinator.

Concerned with the ever-rising textbook prices, lawmakers at state and federal levels have introduced legislative initiatives to require the prompt posting of textbook lists, among other things.

To find out the pricing information of your textbooks,

go to the bookstore’s website at this URL: www.palomar.edu/bookstore/
click on “Books” on the red navigational side bar on the left
click on “Textbooks” next
"select your term" (e.g. Fall 2007)
"select your division" (= location of the class; e.g. SM/ONLINE for San Marcos campus, plus all online courses offered by Palomar)
"select your department" (= ESL; NESL; or NCTZ)
"select your course" (e.g. 003; 034; 098.3, etc.)
"select your section" (= 5-digit class number).

Below is a partial screen shot of the current pricing information for ESL 3 (class number 72040) in San Marcos:

This is still without the ISBN numbers, but your students can get those from you. The important thing is that you can tell (or even show) your students how much money they expect to spend at the bookstore on your textbooks.

Grammar Gurus Wanted

2007-09-27T22:40:00.001-07:00

This is my first attempt, so if I goof it up, please bear with me.

My MA program focused on communication to the point where it almost excluded grammar. Hence, when I found myself in my first classroom teaching general ESL to an eager Level 6, I found myself woefully unprepared for their questions. And concerned.

As you might imagine, I spent that semester buried in various grammar books trying to stay at least one step ahead as it were. And a strange thing happened. I grew to have quite an interest in the subject. The more I delved the more I realized how little I knew. And the more I wanted to know. I found the stuff fascinating.

At some point, a couple of years later, I decided to "go for it," and actually made a presentation for PD on subject verb agreement. I gave a little quiz to my audience, all English and ESL teachers, and then spent the rest of the time arguing with them about why I'd scored various responses incorrectly. It was a hoot. And I was hooked.

The one grammar class I'd taken in school was taught by a wonderful prof who explained to us the concept of "my grammar" - the idea that you and I might have a different set of linguistic rules in our heads. Most of what she taught was new to me, but that idea really stuck. It was kind and forgiving.

Though no guru by any means, I have come to enjoy grammar more and more, and am always fascinated when I encounter something that seems odd to me. And I've always wanted some place to pose a question. Early on in my career, before I accepted my lot as an adjunct, I envisioned long stimulating discussions with my colleagues over a cup of tea in some ivy covered office. Now, I realize, this BLOG thing may work.

The other day, I found myself with just such a question. Taking my cue from the dramatic weather change over the last couple of weeks, I had written a paragraph about the weather on the board leaving the spaces for the verbs blank, a sort of cloze exercise. The students were to fill them in. After several sentences like "It _________ cloudy today," I wrote, "I hope it ____________ tomorrow."

Then I stood back and thought. I wanted the students to put "rains" in the blank, but I could not explain - even to myself - why I didn't like "will rain." What say you?

If you are a guru and would like to respond, please be kind. If you aren't, and you find yourself with a question now and then, maybe we could discuss it.

Language Acquisition and Language Extinction

2007-09-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

Typically, on the first day of school when I give a pep talk about the need to speak English, I sometimes ask my students to think about how many hours a day they use English. And then I ask them to “see” those hours up on the wall as they look around and imagine that the four-wall perimeter of our classroom represents a 24-hour day. Sadly, for quite a few students, that English section of the wall turns out to be pretty small. After that realization, when I announce my classroom rule of speaking as much English as possible, heads immediately nod up and down in agreement.

Can the same “speak English” rule be extended to homes? Whenever such a proposition is expressed by an authority figure or in the media, a controversy ensues. The latest example in the area is here.

Many factors contribute to the acquisition of a new language or the lack of it. For example, my passion for languages in general and for English in particular may explain my lifelong love affair with the language. On the other hand, if a new immigrant is financially hard-pressed, he or she may put learning English on a back burner for a while and join the ranks of day laborers for jobs that require little English. Age and language environment play a role, obviously. My son immigrated at the tender age of 6, received all his formal education here, and now uses English as well as a native-born American.

Even though there may be political reasons for acquiring or losing a language, pragmatically, like many other skills and abilities in life, if you don’t use a language, you will lose it. My son has practically lost his ability to recognize written Chinese because he stopped learning/using it a long time ago. This is regrettable for an individual or an individual family, but imagine the loss of a language for all of its speakers.

According to a research report released last week, half of the world’s 7,000 languages will disappear in this century. (See the story in San Diego Union Tribune here.) A group of caring experts are working hard to try to maintain some dying languages. You might enjoy watching this brief film clip on their finding an Australian language thought to be extinct.

Is saving an aboriginal language as important as teaching English to our students? Leave your comments below.

The Fallbrook Center Computer Lab

2007-09-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

The Fallbrook Lab is up and running. With the recent addition of a data projector, we are looking good! Currently, the lab is used before class as a lounge (refrigerator and coffee pot) for all instructors at the Fallbrook site.

We have sixteen Dell computers with flat screens, which are more than enough to allow each instructor a chance to use the Internet. Once classes begin at 6:30 pm, the lounge becomes a computer lab for the VESL students who are working on their keyboarding skills. At break time, it becomes a lounge again.

We plan on conducting ESL Compass testing in the lab. One set-back to this plan, though, is the slowness of the Internet connection. The Internet version of Compass demands a lot of bandwidth. Unfortunately, we do not yet have an optic fiber line that would allow a quick response time in testing with 16 computers simultaneously. But we will do our best until the optic fiber arrives – hopefully by the end of the year.

The lab and I are still learning about each other, so I envision more creative uses of the space in the near future.

Basic Skills Initiative

2007-09-17T00:42:00.000-07:00

We all know the need to provide basic skills, and by extension ESL, education to students under-prepared for college-level work. A system-wide Basic Skills Initiative has been in the works for some time in order to identify and apply best practices for basic skills education across the whole community college system up and down the state of California.

This Initiative provides statewide training and support to address the professional development needs of community college administrators, faculty, and staff in the areas of basic skills and ESL instruction as well as address both credit and noncredit instruction as they apply to the broad basic skills area, including ESL instruction.

To provide the foundation to develop this training, Foothill-De Anza Community College District has contracted with the Academic Senate and the Center for Student Success to create resource materials for use at the colleges. Colleges will begin with a self-assessment tool that helps to identify strengths and weaknesses in basic skills instruction. With the results of the self-assessment in hand, colleges will turn to materials that outline the general principles and processes that work to help ensure student success in basic skills success courses. Colleges will be provided with a “menu-based” approach of course sequences and other institutional improvements to address the unique needs of their students, faculty, and instructional programming. In addition, colleges will be apprised of available “alternative” career-related math and English courses to meet the upcoming graduation requirements (e.g. "Math for Health Careers" instead of "Intermediate Algebra").

To present these resources, a partnership of the Academic Senate and the statewide organizations of the Chief Instructional Officers, the Chief Student Services Officers, the Center for Student Success, and the System Office Action Plan Group have been conducting training for all 109 California Community Colleges at statewide conferences and several regional workshops.

However, to everyone’s surprise, Governor Schwarzenegger “set aside” the $33.1 million earmarked for the BSI efforts, pending legislative reform, when he signed the state budget on 8/24. The CCC System Office and the Administration then engaged in a lengthy, constructive dialogue regarding the reasons for the governor’s de factor veto and the options for restoring the funds. Many people working in the community colleges also wrote letters to state legislators to voice their concern and urge the restoration of the Basic Skills money.

Last Monday, the State Legislature approved AB 194 (Committee on Budget), legislation which restored the $33.1 million to the community college budget in ESL and Basic Skills. Contained within the money is $1.6 million for faculty and staff development to improve curriculum, instruction, student services, and program practices in basic skills and ESL programs. The remaining $31.5 million will be used for program and curriculum planning and development, student assessment, advisement and counseling services, supplemental instruction and tutoring, articulation, instructional materials and equipment, and any other purpose directly related to the enhancement of basic skills, ESL instruction and related student programs.

The Governor has until 10/14 to sign the bill, which will then go into effect immediately, according to the text of the bill.

Here at our college, a Basic Skills Work Group has been busy at work as part of the broader Basic Skills Initiative. As a long-time member of that group, Marty Furch has represented our dept. single-handedly and superbly. The group will next discuss a plan for completing a self-assessment and the proposed “Success Centers” in Escondido and San Marcos. After reviewing the relevant information, if you have concrete ideas for our department to increase its say and share in this whole BSI effor at our college, please send them to Marty or me as soon as you can. You can also leave your comments below.

Resources:

Introductory information about the Basic Skills Initiative: http://www.cccbsi.org/

26 effective practices in four categories: http://www.cccbsi.org/effective-practices

10 effective instructional practices: http://www.cccbsi.org/instructional-practices

111 pages of literature review regarding effective instructional practices: http://www.cccbsi.org/Websites/basicskills/Images/InstructionalPractices.pdf

Relevant state budget update: http://www.ccleague.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3320

The text of the amended bill: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0151-0200/ab_194_bill_20070907_amended_sen_v98.html

Anne of the Golden Heart

2007-09-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

When the ESL Non-Credit Matriculation Project was presented to the Governing Board in late 1998, the person Dean Garlow, then our dept. chair, called upon to give the presentation was Anne Stadler, who, along with Jose Luis Ramirez, still manages the non-credit matriculation program, which attempts to provide as many portions of the credit matriculation programs aimed at retention and student success as possible.

Over the years, the allocation for the Non-Credit Matriculation has funded many needed positions and projects in our dept., the latest being the remodeling of our Fallbrook facilities.

Another program in our dept. that Anne founded--and still manages as a volunteer--is the INEA (Instituto Nacional de la Educacion para los Adultos) program. This is a Spanish adult ed program providing literacy, elementary, and middle-school level education (alfabetizacion, primaria, y secundaria) to the large Hispanic population in our district who need to learn how to read and write in their first language before moving on to learning English successfully with us. For the last seven years, Anne, along with Jose Luis, recruited qualified INEA teachers, a few of whom are our former ESL students. She also didn’t hesitate to hire someone who represents the culture of the people we serve. Her passion for doing the best job she could to help the poor and the underserved Hispanics in our district has resulted in the growth of the INEA program into a current year-round operation in locations throughout our district. If you open this semester’s class schedule book to page 175, you can see these 13 N ABED (Non-Credit Adult Basic Education) classes, each with two course titles--N ABED 201 and N ABED 202--because presumably in each classroom there are students working on the primaria materials and students completing the secundaria curriculum. It goes without saying that Anne’s effort to bring INEA to students in our district typifies what a community college is about.

INEA is a win-win for all. The college certainly appreciates the non-credit funding that these classes have been bringing from the state. The Mexican federal government, which provides INEA curriculum and free teaching materials, also appreciates Anne’s hard work. Two weeks ago, she and Jose Luis were invited to Mexico City to give a presentation on our INEA program to about 50 participants from the US and Mexico. The report was very well received. Last Thursday, Jose Luis, representing Anne, presented to a different group and received appreciation from the Mexican government. The press was present to document the successes of our INEA program and others in the US.

Speaking fluent Spanish and working full-time as our college’s EOP&S/CARE/CalWORKs Director, Anne still finds time to do volunteer work in Mexico, be it helping translate for medical workers or assisting burn victims. Anne’s lived life as a care giver. Because of that, I’ll always be a fan.

Data for September 15 Hispanic Month

2007-09-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

ESL Faculty --

(This is my first attempt at a memo, and it's with a link, and I'm doing it "my way," so I hope it gets through.)

The link below gives enormous relevant and current data on Hispanic population in U.S. re Hispanic Month this September 15.

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/010327.html

KenS

Professional Development Opportunities

2007-09-02T10:26:00.001-07:00

Since everybody’s proposed PD contract is due in two weeks--by 9/15 to be exact, I would like to write about PD in this post.

Palomar is unique in that it doesn’t just offer PD in a flex-day format, like many other community college do. Instead, the PD Office arranges coded activities for faculty to take part in throughout the semester. Although some might argue that these “train as you go” events make it hard for the institution to launch a focused training campaign, these activities are nonetheless both robust and diverse, ranging from faculty plenary sessions that take place just before the start of a new school year to monthly fitness seminars hosted by the PE Dept.

But it is the activities not planned by the PD Office that have had folks everywhere hail Palomar’s PD program as truly faculty driven. In a nutshell, if you can match a self-designed activity with a code in one of the three categories listed here (http://www.palomar.edu/pd/SelfDesignedDetails.pdf), you can enter it on your PD contract and claim the hours you spend on it.

For example, the faculty in the Evening General ESL Programs in San Marcos met for three hours last weekend to review the new curriculum and revise their grammar exit tests. They were then able to claim three hours of PD using code “2i”—“examine educational/academic issues…in small groups on campus...”

Other codes for self-designed PD activities might be of particular interest to you, such as:

1d: write for publication
1c: create or learn to use computer-assisted instruction
2f: develop computer software skills
2p: develop instructional media
1b: attend professional conferences and workshops
1a: prepare for conference and workshop presentations
1f: acquire foreign language skills
2o: observe a colleague’s teaching to learn successful teaching techniques

So there should not be any shortage of PD activities that you can choose to undertake or design for yourself.

To make planning your PD even easier for you, let me list a few useful resources here in closing:

Activities pre-planned by the PD Office for this semester: http://www.palomar.edu/pd/Fall_%202007_Calendar.htm
Training provided by Academic Technology this semester:
http://www.palomar.edu/atrc/attraining.htm
Our first dept. meeting this semester: Friday, 9/7, from 9:30 to 11:30 in A-15
Deadline to submit a presentation proposal for CATESOL 2007 San Diego Regional Conference: Friday, 9/7:
http://www.catesol.org/regional.html
Application for Rick Sullivan Stipend towards CATESOL 2008 State Conference expenses:
http://www.catesol.org/08ricksullivan.pdf
Application for limited travel funds now available for faculty--“first come, first served”:
http://www.palomar.edu/fiscal_services/Travel/Forms/TravelRequest_Claim_2007.pdf
Faculty eServices where you enter and revise your PD contract: https://pccdpswb01.palomar.edu/servlets/iclientservlet/pals8prdfaculty/?cmd=login

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend!

What a Great First Week!

2007-08-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

Our school year started with a bang. Everywhere I looked, I saw our eager teachers and inquisitive students. Although most of our classes are full now, a few credit classes in San Marcos still have spaces:

ESL 9, Pronunciation I, MW 11-12:20pm

ESL 10, Pronunciation II, MW 12:30-1:50pm

ESL 34, Intermediate ESL I, M-Th 4:30-6:50pm

ESL 35, Intermediate ESL II, M-Th 8:30-10:50am

ESL 103, Written Communication III, TTh 6-8:20pm

ESL 130, Academic Reading I, MW 12:30-1:50pm

ESL 131, Academic Reading II, MW 11-12:20pm

Please continue to help recruit appropriate students into these classes by Labor Day, Sept. 3, which is also the last day to add a credit class.

Campus Police continues to honor a grace period of not citing students in all lots during the first two weeks of the semester -- with the exceptions of handicapped and red zone areas, where violators will always be ticketed.

Campus Police also offers a 24/7 security escort program, which is very welcoming news to our evening students and staff. The extension to dial Campus Police is 2289.

If you are considering presenting at one of the upcoming CATESOL conferences, please note the following deadlines:

Aug. 31 for the early-bird submission for the State Conference
Sept. 7 for proposal submission to present at this year's San Diego Regional.

Finally, please respond to Monica's emailed call for your directory listing information, if you have not already done so. A timely compilation and dissemination of an updated dept. directory for this semester will greatly facilitate our intra-departmental communication.

Welcome to the Fall 07 Semester!

2007-08-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

It's the start of a new semester! "Welcome" to all of our new instructors and a "welcome back" to each of our returning instructors.

This past intersession and summer, our dept. was able to offer a total of 88 class sections to serve the needs of our community. Not only that, our Fallbrook staff finally moved into a new office that Coordinator Gary just reported. Hats off also to Gary, Anna, and Grace for making so much effort to see to the completion of this remodeling project that was months in the making.

As usual, we tested hundreds of new students right after summer school. I would like to especially thank Carol, Tracy, Marty, Holly, Nimoli, Lynne, Matt, Caroline and other fellow teachers for helping to proctor the tests during their summer vacation. Of course, the office staff and support personnel have been working non-stop to ensure our many successes. I appreciate all of them very much.

In other news, the college has reported that credit enrollment headcount is up compared with the same period last fall. I hope our dept. maintains the same healthy growth, too, not just in credit classes but also in our noncredit segment.

To assist students who are facing financial hardships and obstacles that are preventing them from purchasing their required textbooks and/or class supplies, a book grant of up to $100 is currently being offered by the college's President's Associates.

In the "newspaper as a teaching and learning resource" department, there are three vying for your consideration.

North County Times, which is now freely available on a rack in front of our dept. office.
San Diego Union-Tribune, whose no-cost NIE program now has a new online ordering system.
Easy English Times, whose editorial board includes our very own Tami.

Last but not least, a new art exhibition will open at Boehm Gallery this weekend. But a sneak preview of "Rituals" featuring paintings from the private collection of Arthur Pienado and Native American artist Gerald Clarke will be held on Thursday from 1 to 3 pm. Please help spread the word among your students, too.

News from Fallbrook

2007-08-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Hi,

This is a test posting and a bit of info on the side. The new office at Fallbrook has been completed and looks great. The efforts of many, including Marty, the IS dept., and Norma Bean, have seen this project through many trials and tribulations. Among the amenities are: a 16 seat student lab for Compass testing, a sleek, modern counter and work area for the staff, two equipment rooms and a coordinator's office - with a door. There are still some adjustments to be made and kinks to work out but we're looking good (said in a Freddie Prinze's Chico and the Man voice.)

The college will be holding an open house soon so stay tuned for an invite - if you rate.

Welcome back!

Gary

A Brand-New Way

2007-08-13T17:56:00.000-07:00

Since I assumed the dept. chairmanship last month, I have been thinking about a new way to involve the whole department in sharing ideas and communicating information. A department blog really fits the bill in being easily accessible to all on the Internet, allowing for interactions in the form of comments, and even serving as our departmental archives.

So, rather than send out weekly memos on matters that pertain to the whole department, I will use this blog to continually post department-related--

news
kudos
activity reminders
dates to remember
resource links
topics for discussions
important messages
and anything else that fits our needs.

Anyone in the world can read this blog by going to http://palomaresl.blogspot.com/, so you can just bookmark this web address and check back daily as a reader.

But it is easy to be a contributor to this department blog of ours. All you need to do is have a Google account using your Palomar email address and go through a simple six-step registration. After your free registration, made easy with an email invite you will receive in your Palomar email inbox, you will be able to leave comments on this blog or even write posts here.