My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among the promising practices in community college ESL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mark then suggested some solutions for community college teachers:

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

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

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

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Select examples included:

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

Other resources I learned during this session:

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

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

My CATESOL Conference Report, Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jorge Villalobos’ Success Story -- in his own words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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