Spanish-American Institute

Faculty and Staff Meeting and Workshop Minutes

Saturday, July 23, 2005

To:  All Faculty and Staff ~ Freddie Ann BUSH

Schedule:  The Faculty and Staff Meeting started at 10:15 am.  The Workshop convened at 11:30 am. and ended at 12:45 pm with an invitation to lunch at Bolzano’s. 

Attendance:  J. Arbai, L. Arteaga, N. Berrada, A. Burakovskiy, F. A. Bush, E. Castillo, L. Concepcion, G. Coronado, A. M. Diaz, G. Diaz, L. Eco, D. V. Ferraro, J. Gaylan, L. Fallarme, A. Fred-Horsfall, L. Hernandez, F. Kikilashvili, J. Kodjo, E. Manliclic, I. Mumkaya, E. Nibeyro, N. Panganiban, C. Prager, P. Schiffman, A. Santos, N. Tomskikh, A. Verbine.

President’s Report:  Mr. Ferraro welcomed everyone.   

1. Housekeeping:  Mr. Ferraro addressed housekeeping issues.

2. Fire Emergency Exits and Classroom Doors:  He reviewed the fire emergency exit locations and asked faculty to check that classroom doors are unobstructed for safe student passage.

3. Student Library Cards:  Students who wish to borrow circulating materials from the Library should activate their Student Cards as Library cards in the main office. 

4. Hosting Hard Rock Café Training: The Institute may host training classes for Hard Rock Café.   

5. Avoiding Repetition in Exam Week Tests:  Faculty should consult with others about their test formats to avoid repetition during the exam period. 

6. Chair Appointments:  Mr. Ferraro thanked those who had accepted chair appointments and those who made recommendations for these positions.    

Chair Reports

Computer Chair:  E. Nibeyro reported that the computer faculty have been working together on computer maintenance.  They have also begun discussion about ways to encourage tudent final course projects. Two students have enrolled in MovieMaker.

Business Chair:  L. Hernandez reported that Accounting teachers continue to work on student writing.  She has been visiting ESL classes to see how ESL teachers generate writing. 

ESL Chair:  A. Verbine indicated that ESL teachers were talking with students about the relationship of Business English and ARW to TOEFL.

Academic Dean's Report and Discussion

1.  Student Club Newsletter: Faculty report that the Newsletter was well received by students. 

2.  College Success Course Series:  Teachers play an important role in advising students about the preparation needed for the workplace and for college.  The new College Success Course Series brochure helps explain the relationship of Institute courses like Keyboarding, Word, PowerPoint, and the Internet to college success.  

3.  TOEFL/GMAT Essays To Be Word Processed Only—TOEFL and GMAT are doing away with hand-written essays this year.  Test-takers who cannot type or cannot type well and who cannot word process will be at a very serious disadvantage.  Teachers should reinforce this message and encourage students to develop keyboarding and word-processing proficiency. 

4.  Business English-ARW-TOEFL Ladder--There was considerable discussion about the critical relationship of Business English and Advanced Reading and Writing to TOEFL.  It was suggested that faculty and staff frequently review with students the NorthStar Reading and Writing texts used in Business English and Advanced Reading and Writing to increase awareness of how these courses ready them for TOEFL.

5.  SLEP Test and Teacher/Student Assessment of Language Readiness--The SLEP testing schedule will include more frequent testing of ESL 3, 4, and 5 students to help students assess the skills they will need for TOEFL.  

6.  NorthStar/Worldview Test Manuals For Exam Week:  To make testing manuals more available to teachers, it was suggested that faculty members:

• provide a xerox copy of the test they wanted duplicated instead of the whole testing book; and/or
• record the numbers of the test pages they want copied without sending the entire testing book with their requests.

7. Student A/Student B NorthStar Pair Activities:  NorthStar uses several variations of Student A/Student B activities.  Teachers should review the purpose and mechanics of these activities beforehand so that they can give students accurate and helpful directions before starting.

8. Workshop Change:  It was decided to change today’s Workshop Topic to “Generating Writing in ESL and Program Courses” because of discussion begun on the topic during the Faculty and Staff Meeting.. 

Workshop:  “Generating Writing in ESL and Program Courses”

The workshop focused on suggestions for generating at least 5 minutes of writing in each class every day. 

1. Alphabet formation exercises for students unfamiliar with Latin script. 

2. Copying text.  Copying helps with letter formation and spelling.  It models correct writing and  reinforces mental language learning through the physical act of writing (kinesthetic learning). 

3. Keyboarding and Word courses.  Keyboarding provides similar benefits.  It also drills students in the most common letter English letter combinations.   

4. Dictation provides similar benefits.  It also serves to reinforce specific skills being taught in class. 

5. Extended writing.  NorthStar and WorldView almost always use connected sentences in all activities.  Students should write out one or more sentences completely during class instead of just filling in the blanks or picking the correct answer.  By asking students to write out sequential sentences with the correct answers, teachers help students write connected complete sentences that form one or more paragraphs of linked ideas. 

6. Pair work.  Pair a stronger with a weaker student.

7. Guided writing with “wh” questions.  The teacher provides the questions in such a way that by answering them the student writes a complete well-formed paragraph or essay.  This technique can be used with any ESL level, including level 1.  Using different kinds of “wh” questions requires different levels of critical thinking.  Higher order critical thinking requires higher order language skills.  Look at the progress of language skills required in the following guided writing assignment for beginning ESL students.

Write a paragraph about yourself by answering the following questions:
“Wh” Question	Answer	Higher Order Language Skill Required
What is your name?	My name is Maria.	The simplest structure—something is equal to something.
Where do you go to school?	I study at/in/near_________.	Requires students to choose from a variety of adverbial phrases describing location.
When do you study?	I study during the day/at night/before I go to bed/_____.	Ditto.  The choice of adverbial phrase may be more complex than in the “where” question above.
How do you study?	I study by getting up early.	May require a gerund or other more advanced verbal structure.
Why do you go to school?	I go to school to learn English. I go to school because I want to learn English.	At higher orders of thinking, language is all about choice.  To answer this simple question, you have to choose a reason and then chose a grammar structure to explain your reason.  The first choice modeled here  uses an infinitive to complete the idea.  The second choice requires a complex sentence linking two separate ideas to each other. A much higher level of critical thinking and of language use than other “wh” questions.