Post Summit Notes

Teaching of Writing: ESL in the College Level

This discussion focused on ways to promote student success in academic writing throughout ESL and college-level Composition courses, including how to facilitate successful student transitions between levels.

Leaders: Dr. Andrew Tomko (Bergen Community College)

Dr. Olga Weston (Bergen Community College)

Moderator: Dr. Kelly Keane (Bergen Community College)

Session Notes: 

By Dr. Kelly Keane (Moderator, Bergen Community College)

Roundtable: Teaching of Writing: ESL in the College Level

The Bergen CC ESL (American Language Program) Department offers 4 levels of academic English in 4 subjects: Reading, Speaking/Listening, Grammar, and Writing.

I. Cross training ESL and Composition faculty: 

At Bergen, we offer sections of Composition I and Composition II specifically designated for    international students.  The writing requirements in these sections are the same as those in standard Composition sections.  However, faculty do cover more grammatical concepts, particularly concerning sentence structure, and focus more on easy development.  We find that international students (most of whom have come through our ESL program) generally have a good grasp of easy structure but tend to write much shorter essays than native-English speaking students.  Thus, we select faculty who have some background in ESL teaching for these classes.  We often have ESL faculty teach them. Among the benefits are that ESL faculty see what the college-level writing class entails for students first-hand, and Composition faculty see the skill levels of students who have passed the highest level of ESL.  Faculty teaching the international Composition sections will often select readings that have vocabulary more appropriate for second-language learners.  We have had ESL faculty attend Composition meetings and vice versa.

• Participants’ practices: 

  • • Raritan Valley has a portfolio system to move from ESL to comp; no international composition sections; last courses in ESL are college-credit bearing

    • Mercer; their 101N has been abolished, but they are worried that their faculty who teach 101 are not trained in ESL. They are working to provide them with support. 

II. Tutoring and support services: 

Cerullo Learning Assistance Center is a nationally-acclaimed tutoring center at Bergen, and English Language Resource Center is a service center focused on ESL students in all subjects: reading, speaking, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, and writing. Tutors get trained academic rhetoric styles and provide help with prewriting, organizing, drafting, and editing of academic essays and reaction papers, especially at the last level of our ESL program.

The Testing Center at Bergen is equipped with tools to handle ESL students writing assignments and tests, especially the ESL students with learning and other disabilities. Separately and specifically, we have OSS, Office for Specialized Services for the College and ESL students with varied disabilities.

• Participants’ practices:

  • • • Raritan would like an ELRC-type center and currently does not have a space for ESL students

      • Some faculty require their students to attend tutoring - this is not typical practice at BCC (strongly recommended but not required)

      • Atlantic Cape: small center with just a few ESL specialists & the college requires tutoring

      • BCC: tutors are interviewed, screened, and trained; also paid
        
        

III. Learning Communities: 

Bergen offers several paired course opportunities for ESL students to work on both ESL and college-level skills. We have had Writing paired with Psychology and Reading paired with Sociology. In the writing paired course, students learn how to read better, analyze ideas, and summarize them for the consequent writing and research assignments. 

Pairing a content-area course with an ESL Writing course allows the students to get practice in writing that is directly related to the readings they are doing in the Psychology or Sociology classes. 

IV. Co-teaching: 

There is no formal program of co-teaching at Bergen, but it is a useful way to connect ESL level writing to the Composition class requirements. Two or more professors teach one or several classes to be cognizant and incorporate the international student specifics (the knowledge of common native language based errors) into the standard college-level composition skills.

Partners in Learning at Bergen: Partners in Learning is a national program that encourages faculty to observe one another in order to receive constructive feedback on one’s teaching style.  In a typical situation, one partner will visit his/her partner’s classroom two – three times in one semester and then meet to discuss the observing partner’s impressions of the class.   In the following semester, the roles reverse.  Faculty can choose their own partner (within or outside a department) or we can find partners for faculty.  It is purely voluntary and there are no formal evaluations involved. Adjuncts receive credit towards their prof dev requirements.

The program gives an opportunity for ESL and Composition faculty to see what are the class formats, student populations, and subject matter. Participating professors met after the visits and discussed takeaways and future learning opportunities.

• Participants’ Practices:

  • • New School (Jeanne Lambert): ESL is embedded in content classes

    • Leads ESL reading and writing sections 

    • Meets with student for 2 hours

    • Finds this very effective 

    • Similar to SI at BCC but more developed

    • Creative Partners Seminar for Q&A on language for ESL Ss

V. Using OER resources: 

Bergen has offered multiple OER information sessions to the faculty to enable professors and students to utilize free educational materials and/or create or co-create their own assignments, syllabi, modules. The Composition department has already created a 101-level course (WRT-101) that uses exclusively OER content (readings in a canvas course).  These resources are also much easier to share among several classes, such as in ESL and Composition, or in learning communities /paired classes. 

• Participants’ practices:

  • • Has great potential for scaffolding 

    • Raritan: moving away from textbooks. Likes OER

    • OER - great for adjuncts

VI. Bridge programs: 

The intensive and bridge programs (such as a summer boot camp prior to the fall semester) can provide the right amount of writing support for ESL students who either finished a formal ESL program or were placed out of ESL but need a refresher or a polisher of academic writing and vocabulary skills. BCC ESL department doesn’t offer bridge programs but avail the students to multiple one-off courses on specific topics such as TOEFL preparation, English idioms, and pronunciation focus. A writing bridge program could focus on the most troublesome rhetoric styles and special difficult grammar and sentence structure cases.

• Participants’ practices:

  • • Hope: create boot camps to prepare students for college-level courses and to test out of ESL

    • Considerations for shortened/intensive programs for HS graduates (Gen 1.5 students)

    • Middlesex: doesn’t need a bridge so much from ESL to college as from Cont. Ed to academic/college ESL

Teaching Skills in Integration

This roundtable discussion looked at how different programs integrate teaching skills, and how grammar is handled in such programs. 

Leaders: Dr. Carol Miele (Bergen Community College)

Prof. Irene Schoenberg (Aurhor of Academic Series Focus on Grammar, Pearson)

Moderator: Dr. Gemma Figaro, Bergen Community College

Session Notes: 

By Dr. Gemma Figaro (Moderator, Bergen Community College) 

Part I:

Dr. Miele opened Part 1 of the session by asking what an integrated skills program looks like.

• Hudson County CC emphasizes grammar for true beginners.

  • • They offer an 8-credit course with the same instructor.

    • Classes meet twice a week – Writing/Grammar, Reading/Academic Course

    • Culminates in ESL Proficiency Certificate

    • Went from 12 credits to 8 credits - fewer hours but good outcomes.

• Union County CC has four (4) levels in their ESL program.

  • • Grammar & Writing – 6 credits

    • Reading, Listening, Speaking – 6 credits

• Hunter College: Professor Schoenberg stated that at Hunter integrated skills are divided by:

  • • Listening & Speaking

    • Grammar & Writing

Part 2:  Teaching and Learning

    Dr. Miele posed several questions:

•  Why to integrate skills?

• Why to teach grammar courses?

• Does grammar equip students with language acquisition skills?

• How do you integrate grammar skills into other skills?

Professor Schoenberg asked, “How do students do on grammar?”

• Unanimous response: Students do well on grammar but not so well in writing.

Prof. Schoenberg recommended that grammar should be taught communicatively:

• Have a paragraph, see the grammar in use, use it, write it, then introduce the grammar form.

Dr. Miele stated that since grammar skills do not easily transfer to other courses, she presents a reading and asks students to find the grammar structures.

• On the writing rubric that we use in the ALP at BCC, 40% of the grade is grammar.

• Only strong students can write complex sentences.

• Most students cannot link the grammar to reading and writing.

• It is important for them to make connections.

Someone asked if there is a textbook that links reading and writing. Dr. Miele recommended Grammar and Beyond (Cambridge Press).

Professor Schoenberg’s view:

• Beginners should not learn grammar.

• She prefers immersion in real language first.

• Choose books appropriate to need.

• Our goal should be to get students to use language effectively.

Prof. Schoenberg also noted that grading is arbitrary; different teachers grade differently. (We noted that BCC holds norming sessions prior to grading final tests).

In closing, Dr. Miele asked: What is really an integrated skills course?

• Consensus: Building language knowledge.

Dr. Miele suggested that ESL programs examine student learning outcomes (SLOs), unit by unit, to gauge how well we accomplish “building language knowledge.”

Professor Schoenberg suggested using the lexical approach:

• Motivate students to go outside, listen, learn, and use the language.

NJ ESL Administrators' Council

This roundtable discussion considered all things related to student success specifically regarding ESL programs.  

Leaders: Prof. Synde Kaufman (Brookdale County Community College)

Prof. James Hart (County College of Morris)

Prof. Richard Roy (Middlesex Communty College)

Moderator: Prof. Leah Carmona (Bergen Community College)

Session Notes: 

By Prof. Leah Carmona (Moderator, Bergen Community College)

During the roundtable discussion, 2 main questions were addressed:

1. Online Course Demand and 2. Certification Programs.

Part I: Online Course Demand

• • The presenters described their ESL programs and asked about each institution's ESL online and hybrid courses. 

  • Participants were interested in learning about the demand for online and synchronous courses post-pandemic and how each institution has provided support services for this teaching approach.

  • The consensus was that online classes were unpopular, and students preferred in-person courses. Some colleges are still offering a few online synchronous classes.

  • Also, support services for ESL students are very limited in some institutions, such as Brookdale, which only has a few, and Middlesex, which has part-time tutors due to budget constraints.

Part II: Certification Programs

  The second part of the discussion focused on whether 2- and 4-year institutions provide ESL      credit certificate programs.

    Questions that were posed:

• What can we give to high school students that come to college?

• Should we offer credits for life experience?

• Are any schools offering credit for the Seal of Biliteracy? 

• Are schools offering certificates in ESL?

• According to the participants' responses, ESL students receive completion awards, diplomas, or badges at a mini-graduation ceremony, depending on the institutions, but none has an ESL certificate credit program.

• It is important to note that during the conversation, some participants shared information about the format of their ESL programs, like Passaic County Community College, which has four levels and 36 credits, and Middlesex, which has five levels and 50 credits.

• Prof. Howard Pomann (Union County Community College) would like to offer a stackable certificate including ESL.

• Raritan Valley Community College offers a 15-credit ESL certificate of completion that shows "linguistic competence." The certificate requires a 6-credit ESL capstone class, which counts as free elective college credits. It also requires a COM course. Prof. Andrea Vaccaro from Raritan Valley said the state of NJ requires 15 credits for a certificate of completion. This is a certificate in "communicative competence."

• PCCC replaced their highest-level Reading class with a college-credit Public Speaking class which is taught by ESL faculty. This is a 3-credit gen. ed. course.

• Prof. James Hart, ESL department chair at the County College of Morris, said they are building bilingual libraries for their students.

• Richard Roy, academic department chair at Middlesex County Community College (MCCC), said they have 5 levels of ESL and none of their classes offer college credits and they have no certificates. All new students at MCCC are interviewed as part of their placement test.  They have no asynchronous classes, but they still have some synchronous ones.

• Basil Stassis from PCCC said the Pell Grant pays for 30 remedial credits.

• Howard Pomann from UCCC said financial aid gives 30 credits for remedial, but unlimited credits for ESL.

• ESL Chairperson at Kean University said the federal government gives 6 years of financial aid, the state gives 5 years of financial aid. 

• There was a suggestion to offer bilingual gen. ed. courses to reduce the financial aid burden on English Language Learners.

• William Patterson University gives 6 credits to students who have the seal of biliteracy. 

Use of Technology in the ESL Classroom   

AI-generated text is no longer a distant possibility. This session explored the clear potential for it to be used for effective instructional practices and the challenges it presents when used for classroom instruction. 

Leaders: Dr. Amarjit Kaur, Director CITL, Bergen Community College

Prof. Leah Carmona, Bergen Community College

Moderator: Dr. Carol Miele, Bergen Community College

Session Notes:

By Dr. Carol Miele (Moderator, Bergen Community College)

Use of Technology in the Classroom in the ESL Classroom

The session dealt with issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) in ESL.  The point was made that innovations have been a constant in instructional technology, and educators have always had to determine how to integrate new modes of learning and new tools into instructional designs and teaching methods. AI is the latest in a line of digital advances that we need to adjust to.

The presenters introduced the topic of AI detectors, noting that they can be of limited value since they are not always reliable.  However, teachers will use them anyway so that students know that teachers are aware that students are making use of AI. Academic integrity needs to be a topic of discussion in ESL classes.  Lessons need to be designed around process to lessen the likelihood that students will go to an AI program for quick product to submit. 

Colleges have written policy statements that must be included on all syllabi.  Atlantic Cape CC has a statement that they are willing to share.

Designing assignments using AI presents an opportunity to exploit the capabilities of this technology in creative and promising ways.  For example, in an ESL writing class AI was used to correct grammar in an essay. Dalle-E2 was used to generate pictures from student writing demonstrating the fact that the input from the students was not specific enough for a clear image.  Therefore, students had to produce more precise words to get a better picture.  It is also possible to use AI to generate examples of how to write something.  Those models could then be developed into longer pieces of writing. 

AI Meeting of the Minds, a zoom group for those interested in exploring and sharing ideas about using this technology is forming. Emails were collected from interested participants.  To join the list contact Leah Carmona lcarmona1@bergen.edu or Amarjit Kaur akaur@bergen.edu.

Teaching of Listening-Speaking

This discussion focused on the progression of non-native speakers from ESL speaking/listening to college-level public speaking. 

Leaders: 

Heidi Lieb, ESL Professor and ESL Department Chair, Bergen CC

Dr. Susanna Lansangan-Sabangan, ESL and Communications Professor,   Bergen CC

Luciana Lew, ESL, Basic Skills, Composition Adjunct Professor, Bergen CC

Moderator: Dr. Olga Weston, ESL Deaprtment, bergen Community College

Session Notes:

By Dr. Olga Weston (Moderator, Bergen Community College)

Panel: Teaching of Listening-Speaking

• PowerPoint [insert here]

• Participants’ practices:

  • PCCC college credit ESL courses for the highest level (Reading and Writing); replace Reading with Public speaking (college-level) and incorporate readings into it

  • “Exit testing” in speaking courses: have Ss pass 3 out 5 skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking, grammar) → Pass 

  • PCCC: there is a second chance for such tests, if still fail -> Incomplete grade with enrichment program to follow for about 3 weeks; then “I” grade gets changed

  • Warm-up activities: journaling/discussion activities

  • Placement: hard esp with HS Ss; Bergen CC has a 2-3 year cut off: if more than that in HS -> take EBS placement, not ESL

    • Middlesex: interview every student, director and adjuncts do (get paid; approved by dean)

    • Kean: interviews for speaking placement; ESL classes are not required, but strongly encouraged, mostly Hispanic Ss

    • PCCC: no separate assessment for Reading and Writing, but focus on Grammar and Speech

  • Textbooks: 

    • Middlesex: Socratic seminar for high level Ss; passages are used to which students have to write questions and then grade each other on responses - in Speaking classes

Engaging ESL Students in the classroom, program, and at institutional levels to increase program and student success 

Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) and Mercer County Community College (MCCC) facilitated a roundtable discussion that explored how ESL leadership, both at the program and classroom level, creates tangible results. 

Leaders: 

Prof. Andrea Vaccaro, ESL Program and Adjunct Coordinator, Raritan Valley Community College

Lindsey Hageman, ESL Instructor, Raritan Valley Community College

Wan-Ning Yeh, Ph. D., Assistant Professor of ESL, Mercer County Community College

Daniel D'Arpa, Ph.D., Coordinator, Foreign Languages, Mercer County Community College

Nicole Hall, Assistant Professor of ESL, Mercer County Community College

Moderator: W. Brian Altano, Ed.D., Prof., ESL & World Languages, Bergen Community College

Session Notes:

By Dr. Brian Alatno (Moderator, Bergen Commuity College)

Engaging ESL Students in the Classroom, Program, and at

Institutional Levels

The ‘occasion’ of departmental assessment conducted during a self-study evoked an analysis of how institutions engage ESL students at three levels:  the classroom, the program, and the college.  Two community colleges presented their efforts to make the learning experience mor inclusive for international students:  Teams from Raritan Valley Community College in North Branch and Mercer County Community College in West Windsor presented innovations and facilitated discussions in a lively session. 

Professors Andrea Vaccaro and Lindsey Hageman from Raritan Valley Community College focused on two fundamental aspects of the college’s program:  leadership and success.  Raritan’s ESL program seeks to transform international students into leaders, primarily by offering opportunities for participation in broader college initiatives.  The Raritan Valley representatives also highlighted the fact that when they ‘graduate’ into regular college courses, graduates of the ESL program outperform native-language speakers by as many as ten percentage points, through a mixture of dedication and by employing the skills learned in English-language courses.

The team from Mercer County Community College, Dr. Wan-Ning Yeh, Dr. Daniel D'Arpa, and Prof. Nicole Hall introduced the school’s ESL program by highlighting the focus on creating and integrating a community of learners, giving international students opportunities to become a broader part of the college fabric.  For example, at Mercer, ESL students are eligible for the National Foreign Language awards.  The Mercer ESL Program seeks to make classes more student-centered and also invites students to seek language engagement outside the classroom.

After the presentations by the faculty from Raritan and Mercer, a lively discussion covered a variety of topics, from enrollment trends in ESL to the disparity between full and part-time instructors.  Mercer’s inclusion of poetry in writing classes elicited interest and praise and Raritan’s orientation on student success established a model for program development.