City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME IV
Departmental profile. The ESL Department is the College’s largest, with over 22,000 students and approximately
375 instructors at nine campuses and a hundred smaller sites. Many ESL students enroll to improve
their English in order to be more successful at work, more effective as parents, and more active in their
communities. Still others enroll because they intend to achieve an associate degree or transfer to a baccalaureate
institution.
The ESL curriculum is composed of courses in both the noncredit and credit modes, with numerous 10
levels to accommodate students who range from the emerging literate to those who are better prepared
academically, and whose knowledge of English ranges from “absolute zero beginning” to advanced. Many
classes integrate the learning of speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar skills.
In addition to these obvious benefits in terms of the breadth of offerings, one expects a certain economy
of scale in a large department, making it possible to “pool” (as it were) the human and financial resources
in order to pursue high goals. That is certainly true of CCSF’s ESL Department. The Department has been
able to maintain its own Noncredit Curriculum Committee, its own Personnel Committee, and various
other working committees. There are not only many very active committees at the department level, but
within the ESL Department, faculty at the various campuses may set up campus curriculum committees
to address issues of teaching and learning at their particular campus.
Assessment and learning. Assessment is one of these areas in which ESL benefits from economies of scale.
The Department has its own Assessment Resource Instructor, who oversees the use of standardized tests,
such as those used for placement or for promotion. ESL students need to be tested as they come into the
program to find their English skill level, in order to be placed in the classes that are neither too difficult
nor too easy for them and that will best allow them to learn. Once they are in classes and have nearly
completed a course, they need to be assessed to see if they have met the criteria for course completion
and advancement to a higher level.
Assessment challenge and response. In typical form, given its commitment to excellence and its past
leadership, CCSF was one of the first colleges in the state to respond to the State Model Standards by
developing a Noncredit Curriculum Guide based on these standards and began revising the ESL program. 11
Faculty relied upon the Noncredit Curriculum Guide for direction, and at that time ESL was already doing
standardized placement and promotion testing. When the noncredit ESL program was redesigned for
alignment with these standards, the effective promotion testing program had to be scrapped and a new
series of tests developed. The redesigned CCSF noncredit ESL program would essentially split each of
the state model curriculum levels into two, for a total of 8-9 levels. For efficiency and alignment with
the state, tests were developed only for even-numbered levels. They were also developed only for the
skills—reading and listening—which could be most easily tested and scored. Although the previous
assessment system had included testing speaking and writing skills at the midpoint of the noncredit
ESL program, this provision initially was not carried over into the new assessment system. However,
over the years, faculty increasingly felt that common assessment instruments should be developed for
speaking and writing.
10 For example, 87 noncredit ESL courses are recorded in the State Chancellor’s Office for use at CCSF,
more than twice those of any other California community college.
11 The Department is currently in the process of revising its course outlines to conform with the revised ESL Model Standards
that are forthcoming from the California Department of Education. In addition, student surveys conducted in Spring 2005
led to innovations such as more weekend classes, and surveys have been conducted in the past few years to identify curricular
objectives for EL Civics-funded classes. In addition, faculty conduct informal assessments in their classrooms to determine
life skill areas that would be especially useful to students.
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