Minutes from English Language Learner Roundtable

Bundy Campus - March 23, 2007

1. Welcome and Sign in

2. Powerpoint Presentation – K-12 Alignment Issues | Generation 1.5

3. Introductions – 27 participants

4. Discussion

English Dept: Ed Markarian (SMC English Dept) has noticed that the “B level”(SMC pre-Freshman Composition students) students are foreign; “C level” (SMC Paragraph-Writing)are immigrants.Students feel that there are too many levels to get through; Ed tells SMC students they can make it through in 1.5 years to get to Eng 1 if they attend intersessions.

Kathy and Emily (SMC) discussed SMC placement and problems with not having a writing sample.

Norma, a past Venice HS and SMC student, talked about how college requires more responsibility and time management than high school.

Ed (SMC) stated that there is a growing need for Basic Skillsclasses in the English Dept; they have three openingsfor instructors and all are Basic Skills positions.

SMC Welcome Center Counselor, Celena, stated that SMC counselors are not aware that ESL coursework is transferable for foreign language credit.

Kelli Tarvid (Culver City HS) asked if Kathy/Em could explain the slide of Basic Skills and ESL course success rates.

Adrienne Karyadi (Santa Monica HS) Regarding U.C. Rules: Santa Monica High School (SAMOHI): Now only 1 year of English Language Development (ELD)--the higher level--at the high school counts as transferable. The students need more classes to get prepared, but the lower levels don’t count. Culver City disagreed about this policy. Sheltered English neither transfers nor shows on transcripts.

John Gides from CSUN reported that the university offers no ESL services.

Kathy S./Emily (SMC): There’s an inconsistency in that students don’t get credit for ESL in high school but they do in community colleges.

Maria Martinez (SMC Latino Center/Adelante): Annual Latino conference will be held the last Saturday of March, for high school students grades 9-12, for both males and females. Lots of workshops will be offered, financial aid, themes for Latinos, themes for Latinas. 20 different organizations will attend. Additional topics will include: AB 540 students at SMC. There will be busing, breakfast, lunch, raffle. All free. Brings close to 500 students each year. Kelli Tarvid: be careful about when event is offered, as it is during Culver CityHigh School's spring break this year.

Latino Educational Summit at UCLA will be held May 25, 2007:

DISCUSSION

Sherri, Venice HS: Error correction has gone by the wayside. Papers up on board are horrendous with huge vocabulary or other errors. English learners do not have opportunity to learn grammar well.

Peter Lempert, Hollywood HS: Teachers probably did go over vocabulary three times.

John Gides, CSUN: College supervisors do not encourage TA’s to correct errors; it takes too much time. TAs order handbooks to use in classroom but students don’t use them.

Ed, English Dept, SMC: Most of Ed’s colleagues do make corrections. In high school, there is a completely different workload. Ed taught at FranklinHigh School. He had 42-45 students per class. It was impossible to grade papers adequately. Ed blames that on the system, not the teacher.

Sherri, Venice HS: There is a very strict pacing plan and periodic assessments. There has been a whole philosophical change in education.

Emily, SMC: Alignment is important. If we work together, high schools/community colleges have a better chance of influencing decision-making bodies, such as School Boards. (NOTE: At SMC’s May 14th, 2007 Board of Trustees meeting, a memorandum of understanding was signed between Santa Monica/Malibu School District and SMC with particular emphasis placed on Language Arts and Math alignment. MiddleCollege and Dual Enrollment programs are planned.)

Kathy Sucher, SMC: SMC ESL Dept teaches curriculum parallel to the English Dept, but we have a heavy correction load; it’s hard to do everything.

John Gides, CSUN: The supervisor at the CSUN LRC tells instructors they should not be doing the editing; then the struggling students are sent to the WritingCenter and then those students are passed off to graduate student TAs.

How is the CAHSEE exit exam affecting students?

Peter, Hollywood HS: Peter has students he knows are not going to pass the exam.

Culver CityHS: CAHSEE has wokenup students; it has helped with bad study habits. Students who are behind have no hope.

CCHS, Kelli: Essays can be scored on MY ACCESS GOMYACCESS.COMand get feedback more often. Students can get feedback in native language. Students can access it from wherever they are. Each school has to purchase it at a cost of about $19-29 per person. Culver City purchased it for all 9th graders. Others stated that the program is hard to get into.

Peter, HollywoodHigh School: According to Peter, ESL students are doing pretty well on the CAHSEE. If they’ve gone through program, they’re doing better--and better than sheltered kids. The sheltered students are labeled LEP, and they are the ones not succeeding. These are “at-risk” kids.

John, CSUN: There is a 75-min extemporaneous writing exam offered 6 times a year. If graduating students don’t take it in time, they will not get a diploma as they have to pass the test, and they are not prepared academically. CSUN is not teaching any skills to prepare students for that exam.

Dawn Murphy, Project Manager, SMC: Instructors correct papers but wonder if it helps.

Kathy, SMC ESL, explained the theory of error correction: students learn this metalanguage of symbols and start to see that there is a pattern of errors. She adds that students should ideally realize where they have problems and take appropriate classes.

Emily, SMC: We have ESL support courses that focus on specific areas such as grammar, reading, and speaking.

Peter, Hollywood HS: There is a high success rate of students passing the English portion of the CAHSEE. Math is the problem. A student not getting grammar correctionmay succeed in passing the test because she is diligent, but may not improve her English skills long-term.

Claudia, Hollywood HS: Asked what Community College teachers would like to see from incoming high school students at each level of ESL or English.

Ed, English, SMC: Would love to see students with good sentence skills. Paragraph and essay structure are not important; we can teach that.

Kathy Flynn, SMC Outreach counselor: Many high school students at the schools where she recruits cannot understand her.This seems to be an LA phenomenon: immigrants can survive without speaking English. Students need verbal correction. Some students at high schools are not familiar with basic idiomatic expressions.

An exchange ensued about the philosophy of not correcting grammar issues:

  • Books are literacy based
  • English learners are not getting ESL instruction.
  • What is the pedagogical reason for not correcting?
  • We want them to talk about topics, get their ideas out, but we don’t do “drill and grill”
  • We get a new philosophy and we always throw the baby out with the bathwater.
  • Grammar is changing, for example, split infinitives are now okay.
  • We don’t red pen everything because students feel very depressed. Use the triage system.
  • Doeshaving students writing their essays on the computer help with grammar?
  • In-class and at-home papers look completely differentwhen spell-checked and grammar-checked by the computer
  • There are still plenty of errors.

Emily, ESL, SMC: Do you believe that Generation 1.5 exists?

Peter, Hollywood HS asked for clarification.

Kathy, SMC ESL: One characteristic of 1.5 learners is that they don’t have strong literacy skills in either their first or second language. Literacy in first language helps in learning a second language.

Peter, Hollywood HS: When sheltered students take the CELT test, it seems they don’t know how to follow directions or ask for information.

Maria Martinez, SMC: Shared her experience of growing up with Mexican immigrant parents, speaking only Spanish at home, being supported in a program where she read a lot in grade school, became a bookworm, but is still not aware of many English vocabulary words: zucchini, door ajar. What do these students do who do not have support at home for English homework, or even in writing in their native language?

Emily, SMC: Affective attitude of parents are more importantthan helping with homework. Eating dinner and talking with children is crucial. Plazas Comunitariasare online courses sponsored by the Mexican Consulate in whichparents born in Mexicocan take free classes to get their primary and secondary certificates. After they complete these certificates, they can then take non-credit ESL. Such programs help parents become literate in their own language and then help their children.

Adrienne Karyadi, SAMOHI: As a group, Gen 1.5: Latinos students are the least likely to speak in class.

Kathy S, SMC ESL: There are often Kate Kinsella workshops at TESOL/CATESOL. Kinsella shows techniques to bridge the gap between every day language and academic language. English language learners have to hear things a lot first before they will understand them in doing writing activities. Kinsella has developed oral activities toprecede written ones.

Peter, Hollywood HS: Picked up great strategies from a Kinsella three-day workshop, getting students who don’t normally participate involved and getting them to produce.Magic happens when you put children from mixed levels together.

Emily, SMC: Do sheltered students at the high schools ever come into contact with students in other programs?

Peter, Hollywood HS: They do mix in music, for example, but, unless they are misplaced, they don’t interact.

Veta Patrick, Hollywood HS: Students learn faster in high school than adult school, maybe because of mixed groups.

SAMO: They mix in math.

Norma, past student: Students are exposed to English only at school, and therefore they feel intimidated in the classroom.

Kathy S., SMC: Kathy is using online threaded discussionto help students learn about other students’ writing styles. Students say they are learning a lot from other students. They see more advanced students and they want to clean up their language.

Additional Impressions and Suggestions:

  • It would be interesting to have high schoolESL students correspond with Community College ESL students.
  • Tell students that they are going to make the required standard and they will.
  • Extra credit work in high schools is done in Spanish. Something should raise the value of ESL.
  • Regarding Outreach to High Schools from Community Colleges: Some CC representative should visit every local high school weekly and do college counseling, assist college counselors, help students fill out applications online, and do field trips to SMC.
  • SMC Outreach Counselors are available to give presentations on college to high school classes, but they often don’t get invited.
  • SMC does about 70 college fairs a year, but hasn’t done ESL-specific placement at the high schools.
  • The SMCWelcomeCenterdoes lots of field trips, and it could invite some SMC ESL instructors tocome over to talk about ESL at the high school student workshops.
  • ESL teachers should make presentations to the English Dept.
  • Maria talked about flyers for LatinoCenter. In the Adelante Program, students can get one on one tutoring, use computer lab. They get extra consideration for scholarships. Everyone who works in the LatinoCenter wasthe first to go to college in his/her family.
  • How is Adelante funded? District funds: mainly counselors are funded. Adelante lost its funding for field trips, etc.
  • It would be very valuable if SMC faculty and counselors came into sheltered classrooms at high schools; it would motivate students to know there are other possibilities aside from jobs.
  • EOPS--Extended Opportunity Program and Services (Financial Aid)-- does presentations all the time. High schools just need to contact them or the SMC Office of School Relations (Outreach) [Kathy Flynn: 310-434-8227]
  • SMC Outreach should focus more on the high school sheltered classrooms
  • Jose from Bolivar, our food provider, spoke about his background. He took ESL at SMC, and then went to Cal State Long Beach. He is now a leading local entrepreneur:

Cafe Bolivar -Coffeehouse
1741 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica90405
Between 17th St & 18th St
310-581-2344

5. Lunch

6. Closure, Evaluation, Video and Slide Show

Kristen Stutz from RCC is doing a Title V cooperative grant, which is intersegmental. Riverside is applying for another Title V grant. Kristen informed the group that it is possible to apply for a Title V grant immediately after you’ve had one.

Final Suggestions:

  • Start a wikipedia/blog: Any volunteers??
  • Put SMC on my space: Any volunteers??
  • High schools would like SMC to host a student event for next year.

Minutes are also posted on the website:

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