Faculty and Staff Meeting and Workshop Minutes

Spanish-American Institute

December 10, 2005

Schedule:  The Faculty and Staff Meeting started at 10:30 am.  The Workshop convened at 11:15 am. and ended at 1:00 pm with an invitation from the President to lunch. 

Attendance:  J. Arbai, Bah, A. Burakovskiy, F. A. Bush, E. Castillo, L. Concepcion, G. Coronado, A.M. Diaz, L. Eco, L. Fallarme, D. V. Ferraro, L. Hernandez,, J. Kodjo, E. Manliclic, D. Mumkaya, E. Nibeyro, N. Panganiban, O. Piddubna, C. Prager, E. Ramos, A. Santos, P. Schiffman,  A. Tuldanes, N. Tomskikh, A. Verbine, B. Zouhairi.

President’s Report:  Mr. Ferraro welcomed everyone. 

New Laptops:  He reported on the acquisition of four new Toshiba laptops with DVD-RW drives in the Computer room.  

Classroom Doors:  He asked faculty to make sure that the space behind classroom doors remained free so that students arriving late could enter easily.

Cell phone Etiquette:  He also asked faculty to remind students at the beginning of class to turn off cell phones.

New Space:  He asked for faculty and staff suggestions on using the new space (Room 13).  Suggestions included featuring student work and holiday celebrations on the last day of class.      

Chair Reports

              Computer Chair:  E. Nibeyro reported on student projects in computer graphics courses, including Movie Maker. 

               English Chair:  A. Verbine asked faculty to comment on the transition to the new TOEFL book.  Several faculty noted positive student reactions.  The consensus seemed to be that students who were well prepared for the TOEFL course found the iBT activities and model exams easier than the old test for several reasons, including: 

· note-taking allowed,

· longer passages make it easier to determine meaning from context,

· integrating skills tasks an asset in clarifying what is expected of them.   

Students who were less well prepared, however, were having more difficulty. 

Academic Dean's Report

New bulletin boards:  Dr. Prager called faculty attention to the new bulletin boards in the Student Room and in Room 13. 

SLEP testing: She announced that there would be a new cycle of SLEP testing the week of December 19.

Student Club Newsletter:  She asked for faculty feedback on the newsletter. 

Most faculty reported that they go over the newsletter together with the class.  Students particularly like the explanation of American holidays, the recommendations about exploring New York City, the free events listed, and the visual aids. Some teachers reported using New York City subway and bus maps in class so that students can visualize the travel directions given in the newsletter. 

Workshop:  Targeting Higher Order Language Skills at All ESL Levels

The Workshop was built around the 11 Target Skills identified at the September, 2005 Workshop as critical to developing higher order language skills, including those tested by the TOEFL iBT. 

Target Skills

1. Making inferences.

2. Identifying and using main ideas and details.

3. Skimming and scanning.

4. Note taking.

5. Using context clues.

6. Summarizing. 

7. Paraphrasing. 

8. Using detailed examples.

9. Identifying and using rhetorical structures. 

10. Comparing and contrasting.

11. Identifying and using cohesive devices.

Participants shared ideas and techniques for developing these skills at all ESL levels.

Faculty presented several models for helping students organize information in note-taking, summarizing, writing by developing their classification skills using visual mapping.