Berkshire Community College
Department of Languages
Instructor: Lois B. CooperCall: 774.776.3304 (or 774-PROFE04) / Office: Melville 238
Course Meets: TTh: 1:30-3p & 4:30-6p
Spanish in the Workplace for Firefighters
SPA 131 ~ Fall 2015
Office Hours:
Monday, Wednesday: 12:55pm-1:55pm;
Tuesday, Thursday: 10:50am-11:50am
Spanish Program Blog ...and by appointment.
Required Materials:
1) Tactical Spanish for Firefighters, available online, at: http://pslt.biz/ss-fire-ems.php
There are three purchasing options:
· Hard copy in a binder with the text and audio CDs in the mail for $70, plus $12.95 for shipping and handling;
· Digital files to download to your computer on a thumb drive, for $50, plus $6.00 for shipping and handling;
· Direct download of all text and audio files from the http://pslt.biz website, for $40.
2) Access to a computer that is connected to the Internet. Materials and information may be posted to the Spanish Program Blog, at http://blogs.berkshirecc.edu/languages .
3) A valid email address. Your instructor may need to communicate with you outside of class hours, either to send you valuable resources or important information about the class. You will be asked to get the email addresses and phone numbers of your classmates, as well, as you may be required to practice with your classmates outside of class hours. (If you have a cell phone, you will be able to use my GoogleVoice phone number to text or phone me: 774-PROFE04 – 774-776-3304.)
4) A binder to keep your Tactical Spanish text and paper for taking notes and doing written homework exercises. (Use your binder for note-taking. It is preferable to a spiral notebook, since you will want to be able to organize your materials by unit and hand in papers.)
5) Helpful: Post-it flags and highlighters are useful for marking passages in the text and pages in the manual of particular interest or difficulty for study.
Tuition and fees:
· New this year: $20 Registration Fee that is obligatory and payable each semester students register for courses.
· If you are interested in paying your tuition and fees in segments, there is a $30 charge for such a payment plan. For more information, contact Rachelle Daverin at: . Or, call: 413.236.3041. Her office is in Field 109.
Massachusetts Residents:
Tuition and fees for this 3-credit class: $597.00 (Note: Student Activity Fee is waived)
New England and New York Residents:
Tuition and fees for this 3-credit class: $636.00
Veterans:
Veterans who are Massachusetts residents may apply for a Categorical Tuition Waiver, which waives the tuition portion of the bill ($26 per credit) that is good for the academic year (July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2016.) Some of you may already have applied for this waiver, so their bill will reflect this discount. Others may need to reapply for a current waiver. I you have never received a waiver, you will need to fill out an application AND bring your DD214 (member 4 copy) to the Registrar’s Office to document your eligibility.
Your instructor will distribute tuition waiver forms to all veterans who register for the class. Learn more at: http://www.ma.gov/veterans or contact Marsha Burniske, in the Registrar’s Office, at 413.236.2133
Individuals over 60 years old who are legal residents of Massachusetts may qualify for a categorical tuition waiver. With the waiver, seniors pay no tuition and about one-third the credit course fees paid by non-senior students. Application forms for the tuition waiver are available in the Registrar's Office. Completed forms should be submitted along with proof of age. (e.g., driver's license). If qualified, the Registrar's Office will issue a tuition waiver certificate good for one academic year at a time.
Fees for those over 60 for this 3-credit class: $153 (Note: Tuition and Student Activity Fee are waived.)
Important information on this course:
Spanish 131 is a beginning course in Spanish that will provide firefighters personnel with the basic tools they need to communicate with and understand native Spanish speakers in the community. Spanish 132 and Spanish 133, the second and third courses in the sequence, will provide firefighters each semester with vocabulary in more contexts firefighting professions confront on the job and better aural comprehension of spoken Spanish.
Upon successful completion of these courses, students will be able to understand a good deal of spoken Spanish in their workplaces and respond appropriately. Individuals who successfully complete oral and written examinations will qualify for a certificate of completion and a 4% increase in salary. Those individuals who follow up with a one-credit refresher course every other year after having completed the three-course sequence will receive a certificate that will qualify them to continue to receive the 4% salary increase.
Catalog Description
SPA 131 Spanish for the Workplace
3 credits • Offered as needed • HU/hu
A course for those who expect to interact with Spanish speakers in the workplace. Designed to enable student to communicate in job-related situations, this course covers basic Spanish language skills and strategies as well as issues involved in cross-cultural communication.
Objectives
SPA 131 students will master the basic communicative tools in Spanish they need to resolve typical problems related to dealing with individuals in the community on the job. All participants will be actively involved in the learning process, both in and out of the classroom. Successful SPA 131 students will be able to:
· Communicate in basic Spanish with and be understood by native speakers of the language;
· Develop and employ effective communication strategies appropriate to the demands of their job;
· Achieve compliance to simple commands in emergency situations (fire or evacuation);
· Ask for basic personal information and understand Spanish native speakers’ responses to questions;
· Understand and respond to those calling the dispatch desk in emergencies;
· Communicate with victims of car accidents and vehicle fires;
· Handle questions related to still alarms;
· Be familiar with and able to use vocabulary related to the most common medical emergencies. (SPA 132 and 133 deal with more specific medical emergencies.)
· Understand how culture can affect communication.
Students taking this course will not acquire fluency in Spanish by the end of the semester. This is an unreasonable goal to achieve in the space of a single semester (or even three semesters!), regardless of the methodology. Rather, students aim to leave the class able to acquire information from native Spanish speakers, to achieve compliance in emergency situations in response to basic commands and, in general, to communicate their ideas in order to interact productively in Spanish. Students’ growing mastery of aural and spoken Spanish will enhance their relationship with the growing Latino population in Berkshire County. We hope that successful students in this course will be motivated to continue their course of Spanish language study beyond this three-course cycle. (SPA 101-102-201-202 provide training in more spontaneous forms of communication in a far wider range of contexts than those of workplace Spanish.)
Readings, videos and Culture
Short readings on Hispanic cultures and excerpts from Spanish-language films, advertisements and YouTube videos may occasionally be provided on themes we will cover in the course.
Class Format will be as varied as the material covered. The class will be a combination of listening to and imitating Spanish pronunciation of workplace related vocabulary, presentations, discussion in English of assigned readings, paired and group work, situational role play and simulations.
Assignments, which will be announced and explained in class, include homework from Tactical Spanish or handouts, group work, writing, learning and performing scenarios related to the lessons covered. Students should correct their own written exercises from the textbook using the answer key at the back of the binder. Your instructor will circulate to see that you have completed homework. At times, she may give homework that is not from the textbook. In those instances, you will hand your work in for correction and comment. Late homework will not be accepted without permission. Students should not assume that late homework will be accepted in all situations.
Class participation is the foundation of a language course. Students are expected to work with each other as well as with the instructor, and to participate vigorously in class discussions and language practice. As firefighters will be speaking and understanding Spanish in the field, they must practice actively in class. The quality of participation of individuals in the class affects the overall learning experience of the entire cohort: as in firefighting work, a weak member of a given team has a negative impact on the effectiveness of work of the entire group. Keep this in mind! If you don’t commit to preparing well and participating actively, the work of the entire class is slowed. Be the wind in the sails of your class! Work hard; prepare well; participate energetically and with commitment. Don’t forget: the quality of your participation in class counts for a large part (25%) of your final grade.
Testing is an excellent way for you to keep yourself on task and to track your own progress. There will be many kinds of assessment, as there are many types of learners:
Oral assessments and billetes de salida
Assessments on how well you are learning to speak will be the most important part of your testing.
· During class: Your instructor will assess how well you have learned to use vocabulary and grammar on an informal basis during each class.
· During class: She will assess your performance of the communicative objectives for each lesson. Your work in role-play activities designed to help you learn will prepare you well for the more formal oral assessments given for each chapter.
· At the end of class sessions: In order to earn the right to leave the classroom, you will have to earn a billete de salida, an exit ticket. As you leave the classroom each day, your instructor will ask you a question or engage you in an interaction that you practiced during the class session. When you answer correctly, you may leave the classroom. Your instructor will note a grade for your billete de salida performance for each class session.
· Formal oral assessments: There will be three formal oral assessments during the semester: an evaluation for units 1-3 (and handouts), another for units 4-6 (and handouts) and a formal final oral exam that assesses units 1-7. There will be no written final exam.
**Good news: There will be no surprises in the oral assessments; you will know in advance on what you will be tested, how you will be tested and the criteria upon which your performance will be assessed.
Written assessments
There will be three types of written tests. (There may not be a written quiz for every chapter or for every handout.):
· Diagnostic quizzes some of which may not be graded;
· Short vocabulary quizzes for each chapter.
· There is no written final examination.
Vocabulary Quizzes
Quizzes will not always be announced in advance, but many of them will be based on homework assignments from your textbook. This means that if you are keeping up with your homework assignments, you should do well on the quizzes. If you do not excel in these exercises, you should see your instructor to get advice about strategies you can use to improve your performance.
**Good news: The lowest of the chapter test grades will be dropped and will not be calculated in your final grade.
**Bad (?!) news: Since attendance is required, the instructor will not provide for make-up tests. Only in cases of extreme hardship, will the instructor consider the possibility of make-up tests.
Self-assessements
You will also have the chance to provide self-assessments over the course of the semester. This will help the instructor learn about which aspects of the course are most challenging to students and which elements of the course most effectively help students to learn so that she can assist you in creating your own learning plan. Such feedback will enable your instructor to adjust methods to take into account individual learning styles and challenges, when possible and appropriate.
Tutoring
Students are encouraged to take advantage of the tutoring available to all BCC students, as well as the language laboratory facilities in Melville 112. Students who have access to broad-band Internet connections will not need to use the language lab on BCC’s main campus to access online learning resources for Spanish, although all students are invited to use the lab. An advantage of using the lab is that other BCC Spanish students and tutors are often in the lab studying and these students are happy to help you should you need help and if you are unable to locate Professor Cooper for help.
We are lucky to have Frank Santana, a native speaker from the Dominican Republic on board with us, this year. He may be able to attend the 4:30p sessions from time to time to help students act out scenarios in Spanish. Students will practice listening to and understanding Frank’s responses. Alejandro Romero, from Ecuador, is also available for tutoring. Students’ developing skill at comprehension of native speakers of Spanish will be critical to their success in their interactions with native speakers in the community. Contact the Tutoring Center at 413.236.1650 or visit the Center to sign up for tutoring with either Frank or Alejandro. The Tutorial Center is in Koussevitsky 214.
Attendance
Students are expected to attend every class meeting; tardiness of more than ten minutes will constitute a cut. More than three absences could result in a faculty-initiated withdrawal from the course. Students are responsible for all material covered in every class - including tests - whether or not they attend.
When students MUST miss class:
1. When officers are called away from their afternoon or evening class due to an emergency, we strongly encourage them to arrange to attend an evening or afternoon class, preferably the same day but, in any case, at some time during the same week of the absence. When students do make up classes they missed, such call-away absences will not count against students’ attendance record.
2. Should officers know in advance that they will need to be away from Pittsfield for either police training or personal time, they must inform Professor Cooper at the earliest so that she have the time to provide advice on alternate assignments.