Committee Meetings and Minutes

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Foreign Languages Task Force

Meeting Minutes

Current Status of Minutes: Final
Date	March 27, 2015
Time	1:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Location	HBC 301.2

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

Item # 0:	Attendees
Presenter	In Attendance from 1:30 to 5:00 pm
Discussion	Becky Jaimes, Theresa Oh, Bernadeta Kaminska, Mariela Prato-Williams, Todd Phillips, Scott Gibby, Richard Ezell, Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia, John McMinn, Jan Emberson, Joe Liro, Rosa Davila, Mary Greff, Delia Montesinos, Anna Pyeatt, Marc Prevost, Vanessa Lazo-Wilson, Ewa Siwak, Catherine Angell.

Item # 1:	Approval of Minutes
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell presented the minutes from the October 10, 2014, meeting. ACTION TAKEN: The minutes were approved with no changes.

Item # 2:	Announcements and Information (a) Timeline for Campus Renovations and Subsequent Schedule Changes
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell reported that the renovation of the new part of the Highland Campus is not expected to be completed until spring 2019. During the renovation of the Rio Grande Campus between 2016 and 2018, classes that were going to be moved to Highland Campus may have to be scheduled at other campuses. There are also additions planned for the Round Rock, Hays, and Elgin campuses starting in 2017, and the Leander campus will open in 2018. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 2:	(b) Planned Automatic Prerequisite Checking As Part Of The Registration Process
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell discussed problems with the new system to automatically check prerequisites as students register. Admissions and Records plans to activate the system starting with registration for the twelve-week classes in the fall semester of 2015. Students transferring with courses that do not have the same number of hours as ACC classes will not be allowed to register, even though they may meet the prerequisite requirements. Students who are currently enrolled in prerequisite courses will be allowed to register, but faculty will still have to check that they completed the prerequisite. Becky Jaimes asked if instructors will still receive a report at the beginning of each semester confirming that students have the prerequisite. Cathy Angell said she would have to check with Admissions and Records. There is a possibility to list prerequisites as ""recommended"" instead of ""required"", which would allow all students to enroll, but the department would have to let all students who enroll take the course. Cathy Angell has made the administration aware of the problems the new system poses for the Foreign Languages Department. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 2:	(c) New Requirement That An Effective Learning Course Be Included In Each Degree Plan
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	The Provost, Charles Cook, has added a new requirement that all degree plans include an Effective Learning course in the first semester for all students entering with less than twelve hours with a grade of C or better. Students who are not required to take the course may take another course instead to complete the sixty-hour degree requirement if they do not select four-hour Natural Science or Elective courses to fulfill the sixty-hour requirement. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 2:	(d) Request for Information and Updates From the Fall Meeting: 1) Matthew's request for promotional materials 2) The Continuing Education Course 3) Tutors and Learning Labs
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	1) Cathy Angell asked about bookmarks that would promote the different languages. John McMinn said he was still working on them. 2) Cathy Angell asked whether anyone had information about Amanda King's Continuing Education courses on grammar for English speakers studying foreign languages. No information was available. 3) Cathy Angell asked if there were still issues with staffing tutors. Becky Jaimes reported that there is a new tutor at Hays for Spanish 1511 and 1512. She also reported that the Highland Campus has hired a tutor who had not done well on the tutoring test. Theresa Oh reported that the Japanese tutor at NRG is so busy that students have to sign up to see him, and he often has to work additional hours. He is the only Japanese tutor at any campus. Marc Prevost announced that there is now a French tutor at RGC. John McMinn reported that there is a problem with the hours the French tutor is scheduled at NRG because they overlap too much with the times most of the students are attending their French classes. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(m) Professional Development
Presenter	Stuart Smith
Discussion	John McMinn reported for Stuart Smith. He thanked Merry Wheaton and John Golden for the workshops they gave during the past year and reminded Spanish faculty that there would be a workshop on the new edition of Vistas on Friday, April 17, from 1:30 – 3:00 pm at RGC 3348. Faculty can register online at the workshop registration site. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(n) Study Abroad
Presenter	Todd Phillips
Discussion	Todd Phillips reported that six of the eleven study abroad programs have been cancelled including the program to Spain. The program to Costa Rica is the strongest with eleven or twelve students currently enrolled. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(o) Adjunct Faculty Interview Committee
Presenter	Marc Prevost
Discussion	Marc Prevost said that there was currently no need of new faculty and there would be less need of new adjunct faculty since full-time faculty will teach more sections with the new four-hour courses. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(p) Student Success
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell stressed the importance of informing students of what is involved in taking a foreign language course. She reiterated the suggestion of creating information videos featuring former students and asked faculty to consider how to provide access to such videos to encourage students to watch them. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(q) New Faculty
Presenter	Todd Phillips
Discussion	Todd Phillips asked for a volunteer to observe the new Spanish instructor's class. ACTION TAKEN: Vanessa Lazo and Scott Gibby volunteered.

Item # 3:	(g) Eligibility List
Presenter	Vanessa Lazo-Wilson
Discussion	Vanessa Lazo-Wilson reported that there are currently 18 MSTA positions in Spanish, 2 in German, and 1 in Japanese. ACTION TAKEN: None.

Item # 3:	(h) Scheduling
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell reiterated that classes may be moved during campus renovations as reported during the announcements. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(i) Assessment
Presenter	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia and Tim Altanero
Discussion	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia announced that in the fall 1511 writing assessments, the following percentages of students scored 80% or better: Arabic – 81.25%, Chinese – 100%, French 87.8%, German - 95.65%, Russian -80.75%, Spanish - 87.82%. In the 2311 reading comprehension assessments, the following percentages of students scored 80% or better: Arabic - 100%, Chinese - 50%, French - 82.8%, German - 87.5%, Japanese - 83.3%, Russian - 100%, Spanish - 73.7%. No assessments are scheduled for the spring semester. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(j) Technology
Presenter	Scott Gibby
Discussion	Scott Gibby demonstrated online Spanish grammar tutorials he is producing. He received a grant to create them, and they will be available on YouTube. The tutorials will cover grammar topics through Spanish 1412. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(k) Special Events
Presenter	Theresa Oh and Mariela Prato-Williams
Discussion	Theresa Oh reported that nothing is currently planned, but they might try to organize a faculty gathering for the end of the semester. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(l) Early College High School (ECHS)
Presenter	Cathy Angell
Discussion	Cathy Angell announced that ECHS classes had been moved from LBJ and Reagan High Schools to Highland Campus (HLC). ECHS students are being mixed with traditional students. Elsa Taylor reported that they did not mix well in her SPAN 2311 course. A new Heritage Speakers class will mix students from LBJ and Reagan. There will also be a new Bastrop-Elgin ECHS that will mix both college and high school students. They have requested four sections of Span 1411. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	Committee Reports: (a) Foreign Language Honor Society
Presenter	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia
Discussion	Julie Kleinhans-Urrutia reminded faculty that applications for the Honor Society are due by April 1. Students with credit for 1511 course with an A are eligible to become associate members, and students with credit for 1512 with A's in two courses are eligible to become full-lifetime members. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(b) Faculty Evaluation
Presenter	Talia Loaiza and Mariela Prato-Williams
Discussion	Mariela Prato-Williams reported that the Evaluation Summary forms for the fall, spring, and summer evaluations had been completed and would be distributed soon. In the future, only one Annual Evaluation Summary form will be completed, and there was a discussion of how to report the student evaluations. Although some departments use the student evaluation results from the fall semester, college policy requires the department to use the semester with the greatest number of student responses in a faculty member's evaluation summary. Since a faculty member might generally receive excellent evaluations but has an unusually lower evaluation in the semester used for the summary, there was a discussion of how to provide fair evaluations for instructors. In the past, when faculty was only evaluated in the fall, those who were not satisfied with their evaluation could request to be reevaluated in the spring and/or summer. To create a similar process, it was suggested to allow instructors to request to receive an evaluation summary for each of the semesters instead of just the semester with the greatest number of student responses. ACTION TAKEN: It was decided to send out a summary of this discussion to all FOLA faculty by email for comments.

Item # 3:	(c) Textbook Inventory
Presenter	Becky Jaimes
Discussion	Becky Jaimes reported that starting in the fall Arabic will use Alif Baa for 1411 and Al-Kitaab (Part I) for Arabic 1412, 2311, and 2312. Russian will use Troika for 2311 as well as 1411 and 1412. French will use the same text for all courses, but with a different packaging option for the first year textbook. Spanish will use the new edition of Vistas in 1411 and continue to use the 4th edition for 1412, 2311, and 2312. There was a discussion of when to start using the new edition of Vistas in 1412, 2311, and 2312. A new book, Entre Mundos (Prentice Hall) will be used for the Early College High School Heritage Speakers courses. Chinese, German, Japanese, and Latin have no changes. ACTION TAKEN: It was decided to use the 5th edition of Vistas in 1412 in the spring of 2016, in 2311 in the first summer session, and in 2312 in the second summer session of 2016.

Item # 3:	(d) Textbook Audio
Presenter	Stuart Smith
Discussion	John McMinn reported for Stuart Smith. He requested that the contact people for each language contact Stuart Smith to let her know of any changes in audio for next fall by April 15th if they have not already done so. She also needs to know about any textbook changes so she can provide the tutors with the appropriate materials. ACTION TAKEN: None

Item # 3:	(e) Curriculum
Presenter	John McMinn and Jan Emberson
Discussion	John McMinn reported that the new degree plan approved unanimously by faculty through an e-mail vote had been approved by the College-Wide Curriculum Committee. The new degree plan included the following changes from the degree plan that had been approved last fall: 1) The one-hour elective was deleted in the third semester, and a one-hour Effective Learning course was added as a requirement to the first semester. 2) The footnote about the one-hour elective was deleted and subsequent footnotes were renumbered. 3) The Social and Behavioral Sciences course was moved from the first to the third semester to balance course load across the semesters. 4) The Restricted Electives in the third and fourth semesters were changed from three hours to three or four hours to allow students to take a four-hour course in another foreign language or the other electives that were already listed. 5. The total hours for each semester of the degree plan were changed to match these changes, and the degree plan's total hours were changed from 60-62 to 60-64 to indicate the addition of the possible two hours in the restricted electives. There was also a discussion on whether each language group can decide how many exams should be required for each course. Jan Emberson recommended keeping the same chapter breakdown for Spanish with the same number of exams. Cathy Angell pointed out that there have been complaints about the number of verb tenses taught in Spanish 2312. John McMinn requested that each language send him the new master and sample syllabi for 1411 courses by the end of July in order to update the curriculum guidelines. ACTION TAKEN: It was approved for each language group to decide how many exams are required for each course.

Item # 3:	(f) Spanish for Spanish Speakers
Presenter	Rosa Davila
Discussion	In order to encourage enrollment in the Spanish for Spanish Speakers course, Rosa Davila suggested removing the prerequisite for Spanish 2313. She also suggested adding the following schedule notes for SPAN 2313: 1) This course is equivalent to SPAN 2311. 2) Credit will not be given for both SPAN 2313 and 2311. 3) This course is designed for Spanish speakers and is taught completely in Spanish. 4) This course does not give you credit for SPAN 1411 and SPAN 1412. 5) If you need credit for SPAN 1411 and 1412, you can take those courses or receive credit by exam. You can find information about credit by exam at http://www.austincc.edu/fola/creditbyexam.php. 6. If you need additional information about SPAN 2313 or 2315 contact Rosa Davila at rdavila@austincc.edu. She also suggested the following course schedule notes for SPAN 2315: 1) This course is equivalent to SPAN 2312. 2) Credit will not be given for both SPAN 2315 and 2312. 3) This course is designed for Spanish speakers and is taught completely in Spanish. 4). If you need additional information about SPAN 2313 or 2315 contact Rosa Davila at rdavila@austincc.edu. ACTION TAKEN: It was approved to remove the prerequisite for SPAN 2313 but recommend that students have listening comprehension and verbal proficiency in Spanish. It was also decided to add statements in the catalog for SPAN 2313 that it is equivalent to SPAN 2311 and that credit will not be given for both SPAN 2313 and 2311. For SPAN 2315, it was approved to add statements in the catalog that it is equivalent to SPAN 2312 and that credit will not be given for both SPAN 2315 and 2312.

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