INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / APRIL 24, 1990

A TAAL DUST IAE SUT NITES SS TS A SIS PL SIS LT IRI RARITY BREA MTS DEES AIEEE TA 1 BRE SS LSE LR TORTS

Annotated Syllabi:

Coordination of an American Language Program &

At Bergen Community College, a suburban campus
with approximately 10,000 students, the largest growth
arca has been among its international population,
which now approaches 20% of the student body, ina
county where internationals constitute only 6.7% of the
residents. The American Language Program at the
college has been rising at the rate of 8-10% per year and
now totals almost 500 students.

In this program, full-time students (day or evening)
enroll for 15 credits in a pre-academic program—six
hours of grammar and three hours each of speech,
writing, and reading. Before registration, these stu-
dents are pre-tested and placed in one of three levels.
There is an exit examination required at the conclusion
of Level III which students must pass before they are
allowed to register for regular college courses.

Sometimes, the grammar, reading, and writing com-
ponents of any one level are taught by one instructor,
but more often there are two or even three.

The Goal

Our goal was to better coordinate the content and
methodology of instruction in the American Language
Program by eliminating the differentials—day/night
student, full-time/part-time instructor, non-standard-
ized teaching patterns.

The Plan of Action
The plan of action was to prepare an annotated

syllabus for each course in the program, prepared by

professors who had taught the courses several times
before. Each syllabus is approximately 20 pages in
length, and all are bound in one volume. They are
loosely based on the text used for each course, facilitat-
ing any future changes in texts. Much of the work sug-
gested by the syllabus is aimed at the acquisition of
skills necessary for students to progress throughout the
program and in the academic courses that will follow.
Each syllabus is divided into six segments:

1. A statement of the course objectives;

2. A description and analysis of the textbook;

3. An overall course outline, based on the sequence of
specific competencies judged essential by members
of the American Language Faculty;

4. Suggestions for use of individual segments of the
text, clearly and precisely delineating exercises and

choices within a chapter;

5. Copies of additional exercises not found in the
textbooks (For the writing classes, these include
previous additional writing assignments that have
been successfully employed. In reading classes
there are additional texts, vocabulary practices, and
exercises to enhance reading techniques. The
grammatical segment includes exercises of a more
creative sort than are usually provided in texts.);

6. Actual examinations used in previous courses.

All instructors are given a copy. It is especially helpful
to adjunct faculty members teaching at the college for
the first time. They are reminded that the syllabus is to
serve as a collection of suggestions, not to be regarded
as mandatory. But to simplify effort and reduce
preparation time, the authors prepared all exercises in
such a way that instructors need only to photocopy or
mimeograph the pages and distribute them to students.
No retyping is necessary.

Outcomes

Most faculty members have expressed satisfaction go
with the annotated syllabi. Adjunct instructors are es-
pecially pleased because, in addition to course materi-
als, they receive an orientation to the goals and meth-
odologies utilized in the program. Instruction is more
standardized, making the movement from day to
evening (or vice versa) more fluid. Plans are already
underway to update the syllabi, with input from all
instructors, full- and part-time, involved in the Ameri-
can Language Program.

W. Brian Altano, Professor, Humanities

For further information, contact Bonnie McDougal Ray,
Alfred McDowell, or W. Brian Altano at Bergen Com-
munity College, 400 Paramus Road, Paramus, NJ
07650-1592.

 

Oo

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor

March 30, 1990, Vol. XII, No. 10

©The University of Texas at Austin, 1990
Further duplication is permitted by MEMBER
institutions for their own personnel.

8

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