Spanish-American Institute
Faculty and Staff
Meeting and Workshop Minutes
June 28, 2008
Eligio CASTILLO
Schedule: The Faculty and Staff Meeting started at 10:30
am. The Workshop convened at 11:00 am. and ended at 12:45 pm. Mr. Ferraro invited faculty and staff
to lunch at Kellari Taverna
afterwards.
Attendance: J. Arbai, A.M. Diaz, G. Diaz, Loreeen Dolina, L. Fallarme, D.V. Ferraro, J. Gaylan,
L. Grajo, Y. Hagiyama, L.
Hernandez,, J. Kodjo, A. LisItsyn,
E. Manliclic, M. Marcus, Z. Matiychyk,
N. Panganiban, C. Prager, E. Ramos, O. Sheekhova, N. Tomskikh, A.Tuldanes, B. Zohairi.
President’s Report: Mr. Ferraro welcomed everyone. He—
q distributed the new Student Life
brochure and thanked everyone for their input.
q distributed copies of sketches done by
a student based on Nori
Panganigan’s “talent show.”
q stated that the School website
continues to get an increasing number of “hits” and encouraged everyone to
visit it.
q introduced new faculty and staff (Olga
Shukhova, Yuka Hagiyama,
Alex Lisitsyn, Loreen Dolina, and Zoryana Matiuchyk).
q asked faculty and staff to
please empty any lockers not assigned to them
Chair
and Other Faculty Reports
Nori Panganiban described her ESL 5 class’ talent
show in response to a NorthStar Unit on multiple intelligences.
Melvin Marcus described how he uses the new TOEFL
Lesson Activity resource book.
Academic Dean's Report: Dr. Prager—
q
described TOEFL instructional resource
material (see further below).
q
encouraged faculty, especially new faculty,
to promote student use of the Longman’s
Dictionary of American English at the ESL 5 and above levels (copy
available for faculty in Bookstore).
q
described the next NorthStar edition’s
increased focus on writing.
TOEFL Instructional
Resources: TOEFL
teachers may borrow the following materials from the Bookstore:
1.
Longman
Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, Lesson Plans (new)
2.
Longman
Preparation for the TOEFL iBT, Classroom Activities
(new)
3.
NorthStar
Intermediate, High Intermediate, and Advanced Building Skills for the TOEFL
iBT, companion texts to the ESL 4, 5, and 6 texts used
at the Institute.
The Building
Skills for the TOEFL texts come with listening CDs. Some teachers use Building Skills to help with lesson planning that integrates writing
and reading skills into the Listening texts or for testing material correlated
to NorthStar units. Dr. Prager encouraged all ESL faculty to
review the Building Skills texts for
ideas on how to integrate language skills in ESL 4, 5, and 6.
Writing
Integration: Faculty were surveyed
for the amount of writing they ask students to do in ESL classes. Faculty should give at least 5 minutes of writing every day in every ESL
class, even when not required by a NorthStar activity. Examples were provided about how to extend
writing from non-writing NorthStar activities.
q
Writing is usually students’ weakest skill. Therefore, writing activity is important for
its own sake.
q
Writing is an “active” skill. It requires application of grammar,
vocabulary, structures, etc.
“Application” is a higher order language and thinking skill.
q
Writing is not “passive” like drills or fill
in the blanks exercises which require students to only recall or remember. “Recalling” or “remembering” is the lowest
order thinking and language skill.
q
Writing provides the teacher with evidence of
specific student weaknesses.
q
Writing provides students and teachers with
evidence of readiness or unreadiness to move to a higher ESL level. It helps teachers demonstrate weaknesses to
students.
q
etc.
ESL
Intermediate Levels Importance: Student
Placement and Student Outcomes
Faculty discussed the importance of the three
intermediate level ESL courses. There
was general agreement that ESL 3 and 4 were the most critical levels. At the same time, intermediate level students
often want to move to more advanced study before they have mastered
intermediate level skills.
Faculty exchanged ideas for demonstrating to
students that they had not yet acquired the critical language skills,
including:
1.
giving 5 minutes of writing per day based on
extension from the NorthStar texts and
2.
giving a selection from the TOEFL to unready
students who want to jump to a higher level.
Both activities can help students see how unready
they are to “apply” language at their ESL level
The Institute will also review current placement
test cutscores for intermediate levels.
Faculty discussed how a non-writing Intermediate (ESL 4) activity from “Sharing Information” (p. 74) could become a 5 minute structured writing activity. Students would be asked to change the following question into a statement incorporating an answer chosen from a list of options: “When you hear a person speak in your native language, what can you tell from that person’s accent?”
Intermediate Levels Higher Order Thinking and Language Skills: The group analyzed the higher order thinking skills and language skills embedded in the above Intermediate ESL level question. Faculty also compared Intermediate (ESL 4) level “grammar/structure” and sentence complexity to that used in lower and higher level ESL classes.
“Correct” Responses vs. Higher Order Responses: Students will always give the shortest, simplest response they can get away with, unless encouraged by teachers to do more. Signs of low order language and thinking skills include:
q giving little bits of answers,
q using simple sentences,
q using “to be” instead of active verbs,
q failing to connect ideas or more than one thing to another, and/or
q failing to provide reasons for answers.
Although often “correct,” such answers receive very low ratings on language placement and assessment tests. Good teaching means prompting students to provide more than simple correct answers.