City College of San Francisco - California Competes

THEME IV
Continuous improvement. The ESL Assessment Resource Instructor produces reports each semester on
the results of noncredit promotion testing. In order to promote wider discussion of how promotion test
results might inform instructional and curricular practices, the ESL Department Chair worked with the
ESL Noncredit Curriculum Committee to establish faculty forums in Fall 2004 for discussion of promotion
test results. ESL faculty surveys were also used in conducting the evaluation. Faculty found that student
success varied over the years in somewhat predictable fashion by campus. This is widely considered to
be due to linguistic and age differences in student populations studying ESL at the various campuses,
not to differences in pedagogy.
Recommendations were included by the Noncredit Curriculum Committee as part of its evaluation of
the promotion assessment program. One recommendation is for teachers working with the same levels to
meet (in “level meetings”) to discuss how to help students at all campuses reach optimal levels of learning.
Also as a result of the recommendations, the Department has started developing tests for speaking and
writing, and students will again face a battery of four tests at the midpoint of the curriculum, 12 noncredit
Level 4. It is felt that this “gateway” (to upper levels) approach is a good compromise between the desirability
of testing students in all skills at all levels and the challenging logistics and economics of
administering tests of spoken and written language.
These logistics may be formidable. The administration of common-instrument speaking and writing
assessment involves extra faculty time compared to other types of testing. The resources that would be
required to implement this assessment for every student in every section every semester are decidedly prohibitive.
Having a “gateway” in place at a particular level of the program will serve to alert both students
and faculty to the fact that the oral and writing skills will be tested and that students must be gradually
prepared for that through the integration of those skills into the routines of teaching and learning.
Funding. With the use of faculty volunteers in the evaluation and improvement of noncredit testing,
no special funding was necessary. Although the ESL Assessment Resource Instructor’s position is partially
funded by the 231 Grant, 13 she says that many of the assessment improvement activities do not receive
any funding.
Evaluation. The evaluation of effective implementation and goal attainment for ESL will occur in
the next Program Review. Documentation of test development will be included in the End-of-Year
Assessment Report.
12 Level 4 at CCSF corresponds to the more challenging parts of Beginnning High in the Statewide Model Standards.
13 The 231 Grant is supported by funds from the federal Workforce Investment Act, Title II (Adult and Family Literacy).
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