Committee Meetings and Minutes

Administrative Login

Foreign Languages Task Force

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	April 4, 2014
Time	1:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Location	HBC - Room 301

Members Present
No member attendance has been recorded.
Guests Present
No guest attendance has been recorded.

Item # 0:	Attendees
Presenter
Discussion	Stuart Smith, Joe Liro, Becky Jaimes, Todd Phillips, John McMinn, Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia, Theresa Oh, Scott Gibby, Marc Pr�vost, Tim Altanero, Jan Emberson, Stephen Johnson, Catherine Angell, Patricia Fernós, Anna Pyeatt, Mariela Prato-Williams, Ewa Siwak, Tal�a Loaiza, and Amanda King, Continuing Education.

Item # 1:	Approval of Minutes
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell presented the minutes from the October 25, 2013 meeting. John Golden requested to be removed from the Special Events and Spanish for Spanish Speakers Committees ACTION TAKEN: The minutes were approved with the requested changes. .

Item # 2:	Continuing Education Course Proposal
Presenter	Amanda King
Discussion	Amanda King discussed her plans to create a Continuing Education Course on grammar concepts for English speakers studying foreign languages. The course will meet one hour per week for twelve weeks. Students from all levels could take the courses, but students in 1511 courses will be the target group. She also plans to offer workshops presenting tips for studying foreign languages. She asked faculty to complete a survey with suggestions for these courses. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	Tutors in Learning Labs
Presenter	Becky Jaimes
Discussion	Becky Jaimes announced that the applicants for tutoring at Hayes were having difficulty passing the test for Spanish tutors. She reported that labs are sometimes anxious to find Spanish-speakers to be tutors even if they do not understand grammar enough to know how to explain it. She said one person may be hired at Hayes and restricted to tutoring only Spanish 1511. Marc Pr�vost reported that there had been difficulty in getting a French tutor at RGC. Theresa Oh said they also needed a Japanese tutor. She said they had interviewed one, but the process to hire the person was never completed. Mr. Pr�vost said this had also occurred in French. ACTION TAKEN: Cathy Angell said she would look into this problem.

Item # 4:	Announcements: (a) Departure of Karolina Aznar Lantermann
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell told the department that Karolina Aznar Lantermann had left because her husband had accepted a position at the University of Vienna. She did not know whether a new full-time instructor would be hired to replace her. There was a suggestion that a replacement might be changed to another language. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 4:	(b) Request to Develop Promotional Materials For Our Courses
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell conveyed that Matthew Daude, Dean, Arts and Humanities, is requesting that the Foreign Language Department create advertisements for its programs, especially for the languages with smaller enrollments. She showed bookmarks advertising other departments. ACTION TAKEN: John McMinn, Scott Gibby, Theresa Oh, and Richard Ezell offered to work on creating bookmarks for each of the languages taught.

Item # 4:	(c) New State Legislation Requiring all Associate's Degrees in Texas to Include Exactly Sixty Credit Hours
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell discussed the State's requirement that all Associate's Degree Plans allow students to obtain a degree with exactly sixty hours of credit. There was a suggestion to list the science requirements as 3 hours, instead of 3-4 hours. It was not clear whether this could be done since many sciences have a required one-hour lab. Other options mentioned included reducing a required elective from three hours to one hour or eliminating the computer course and adding one additional hour of electives. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	Committee Reports: (a) Special Events
Presenter	Theresa Oh
Discussion	Theresa Oh reported that there would not be a Carnival ah! this year. She said they were considering having a potluck dinner for faculty and their families. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(b) Study Abroad
Presenter	Todd Phillips
Discussion	Todd Phillips announced that there would be four study abroad programs at ACC this summer: Spanish 2311 and 1300 in Costa Rica; Spanish 2312 and 1300 in Spain; a German Film course in Germany; and a British Literature course in Great Britain. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(c) Foreign Language Honor Society
Presenter	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia
Discussion	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia reminded faculty that students' applications for membership in the Honor Society were due by the end of the week. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(d) Faculty Evaluations
Presenter	Mariela Prato-Williams and Tal�a Loaiza
Discussion	Mariela Prato-Williams reported that Adjunct Faculty evaluations had been completed and would be sent out electronically by the Dean's office to ACC email addresses. Tal�a Loaiza reminded faculty to have their students do faculty evaluations each semester and to follow up by submitting a Faculty Input Form after they receive the results. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(e) Eligibility List
Presenter
Discussion	Nothing reported ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(l) Professional Development
Presenter	Stuart Smith
Discussion	Stuart Smith asked faculty for workshop ideas. She announced that on April 25th, Mariela Prato-Williams and Scott Gibby would give a workshop reporting on what they had learned at the SXSW Technology Conference. Ms. Smith also reminded faculty to make sure they were current with their training on Sexual Harassment Prevention and ADA Awareness. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(m) Adjunct Faculty Interviews
Presenter	Marc Pr�vost
Discussion	Marc Pr�vost said that there had not been much need for interviewing since enrollments were down. Becky Jaimes said there were still a few sections that were not staffed for the summer, but they would wait to see if faculty could be moved from canceled classes before interviewing to hire new adjunct faculty. Mr. Pr�vost said that he felt adjunct instructors are often placed in a difficult situation of not knowing whether their courses would make or be changed at the last moment. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(n) Textbook Inventory
Presenter	Becky Jaimes
Discussion	Becky Jaimes reported that the new ISBN of Vistas for all levels of Spanish is 9781618578594. This includes the Virtual Text. The textbook Espa�ol Escrito and its workbook were added for the Spanish 2313 (Spanish for Spanish Speakers) course. For Fall 2014, French 1511 courses will change to the 6th edition of the current Horizons textbook. French 1512 courses will change to the 6th edition in Spring 2015. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(o) Textbook Audio Inventory
Presenter	Stuart Smith
Discussion	Stuart Smith said she would update the audio materials at the libraries to reflect the textbook changes.

Item # 5:	(p) Student Success
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell commended the faculty on their good work and the reputation of the department. She expressed pride that the department offers so many courses in different languages, and she suggested putting information about the new German Honor Society on the department's website. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(q) New Faculty
Presenter	Todd Phillips
Discussion	Todd Phillips announced that there were no new instructors. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(f) Scheduling
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell reported that the schedule for Spring 2015 had been sent to the campus manager for room assignments. She shared a list of courses moved to HLC for the fall, and she asked for input for the spring. It was suggested to change one of the TTh 3:30 Span 1511 classes in the fall. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(g) Early College High School (ECHS)
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell announced that Elgin, Bastrop, and Manor will be adding new ECHS classes. All 9th graders taking these classes will be required to take a college success course. Higher level courses will be moved to the HLC campus. Scott Gibby said that the students he had in Spanish II would not be ready for Spanish III. He has had to adapt what he does for these classes. He also said some of the students did not want to take these classes but were put in them. He also suggested that the Spanish for Spanish Speakers courses might be better at these schools. Marc Pr�vost expressed concerns that students are not performing at the appropriate levels, and that students, parents, and the community are being given a false impression. Stephen Johnson shared that his experience teaching at this level made him think students in the 9th and 10th grades are not mentally mature enough. Richard Ezell said these programs should be at higher performing high schools, instead of lower performing high schools. Cathy Angell said that the administration would like to train high school teachers to teach these courses. It was recommended by several faculty to put concerns in a letter. Cathy Angell said the department needs to document why these courses are not working. Faculty expressed support for allowing students to take ECHS classes. ACTION TAKEN: It was approved to create a statement of the department's position. Scott Gibby offered to gather comments and create a draft.

Item # 5:	(h) Assessment
Presenter	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia
Discussion	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia reported the following success rates with students scoring 80% or better on the fall assessment test of reading comprehension in 1511 courses: Chinese 84.9%; Japanese 88.25%; Russian 73.92%; German 51%; French 91.67%; Spanish 76.39%. For Spanish 1512 courses, she also reported the following success rates on the fall assessment testing of these additional skills: for technology skills, 94% completed the assignment; for interpersonal skills, 100% completed the assignment and performed a peer review. She announced that this spring, Spanish 1511 writing skills would be tested. She also told faculty that there is a new database used to record data, and that it must be completed by the first day of the following semester. Scott Gibby distributed a draft of a new challenge exam for SPAN 1511. He asked for suggestions from those present. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(i) Curriculum
Presenter	John McMinn
Discussion	John McMinn reported that the College-Wide Curriculum Committee had rejected the department's request to change the degree plan allowing students with computer literacy to substitute a world history or world literature course for COSC 1301. He also summarized a discussion among French faculty about a request to allow students with the six-hour, first-year French course from the University of Texas (UT) to take FREN 2311 at ACC with instructor's approval. Since the course at UT does not cover 80% of the material from ACC's FREN 1512, the majority of the faculty felt that those students would not be ready for FREN 2311, and the department should continue to require those students to take a CLEP or challenge exam before taking French 2311. Jan Emberson announced that the ISBN for the Spanish Virtual text had been updated on the syllabi. . ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(j) Technology
Presenter	Scott Gibby
Discussion	Scott Gibby reported that the current evaluation packet for online courses needed to be updated due to changes, such as, the addition of online French classes. Stephen Johnson encouraged faculty to introduce students to Internet sites giving students contact with the languages. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 5:	(k) Spanish for Spanish Speakers
Presenter	Rosa D�vila
Discussion	Rosa D�vila distributed information sheets about the Spanish for Spanish Speakers courses. She also showed the website for the courses, which includes contact information and self-evaluation to help students determine whether the courses are good for them. There is also a self-assessment test, and the results are emailed to her. The site is in English and in Spanish. ACTION TAKEN: None

Austin Community College
5930 Middle Fiskville Rd.
Austin, Texas 78752-4390
512.223.4ACC (4222)