Section 2: Collaborative and integrated curriculum design and implementation

BHCC Research Findings on Best Practices for Teaching ESL

Characteristics of asset-based/accelerated vs. deficit-based/remedial approaches to teaching ESL

The dominant ELL program model in community colleges across the US is a gate-keeper model, designed around isolated skill-based classes, with curriculum framed around discrete skills.  It is based on the premise that students must “prove” they have mastered a sufficient level of English before they are allowed to enter credit-bearing classes.  Yet much of the research on effective ELL programs supports an integrative model, with ELL classes linked to credit-bearing content classes and a curriculum that integrates language learning and academic content (Kibler et al, 2012; Bunch & Kibler, 2015; Razfar & Simon, 2011; Rodriquez et al, 2019; Fogarty et al, 2003; Booth, 2009).  Mlynarczyk and Babbitt (2002) find that college students who take isolated and unrelated courses “perceive their educational experience as lacking in coherence or community.”  But ELL and content classes have different outcomes, are often taught through different methodologies, and engage with content with different purposes.  How do co-teachers begin to integrate an ELL class and a content class?

Aurora

Previously, the script I followed for collaboratively developing a learning community was to send my co-teacher a list of chapters I wanted to cover, with my ELL co-teacher then scheduling her reading assignments and pacing her topics and assignments to line up with my chapter schedule.   It worked well as a good first step and we learned to be more in sync each semester.  This was the extent of our collaboration. This could have been Jeff’s and my approach; however, I think we were both ready for something more. 

Jeff

Aurora and I had already determined a theme for our learning community – immigrant experiences in Chelsea -- but now we had the task of collaboratively creating an integrated curriculum.  As part of our contract to co-teach this LC cluster we were paid a stipend for around 15 hours of collaboration, which supported us in meeting to plan the course. Drawing on the research and the concept of backward design, I suggested to Aurora that we begin by discussing the ending point of our classes – the assessments that mattered the most.  In both of our cases, the most important assessments were essays.  In my case, essays are key indicators of whether students are ready to progress into the entry level writing class in our school, College Writing 1.  In Aurora’s case, essays are key indicators of whether students are able to understand and apply core principles and concepts from SOC-101 to their experiences and contexts.  Because demonstrating knowledge of the content was a required outcome in Aurora’s class, it made sense for her to take the lead in developing the frameworks for these essay assignments around the target sociological concepts.  With each essay assignment she wrote out an initial draft of the assignment which I then revised based on my background in assignment design.   

With those key assessments locked down and the textbook determined, the next step was to choose the materials that would support the students in connecting the sociological concepts to Chelsea and to the students’ immigrant/international experiences.  I consulted with Aurora about the key concepts the students needed to learn in SOC-101 and searched for materials that linked those concepts to Chelsea and/or immigrant experiences.  My very unsophisticated approach was to simply google words such as “Chelsea”, “Massachusetts”, “immigrants” along with the target SOC content such as “social class” or “ethnocentrism”.  Of course I got a million hits, but I selected an initial list of 20 articles or podcasts based on length, level of reading difficulty, authorial perspective/purpose, genre and format and perceived relevance to my students.  I also strove for variety.  For instance, my final selection included the speech published in the Chelsea local newspaper of a Chelsea High School valedictorian denouncing anti-Latino racism in Chelsea, a Boston Globe article about the Chelsea public school response to undocumented students and an editorial in the same Chelsea newspaper by an Arab immigrant informing Chelsea store owners about the different non-verbal gestures and norms Arabs use in public settings.  I then reviewed this list of materials with Aurora and she narrowed it down to about 10 articles that best connected with the SOC content. 

Aurora

We then began selecting and developing our week-by-week readings and activities based on these major essay assignments.  We had to ensure that the key SOC-101 chapters were sequenced and sufficiently covered to support students in writing the essays.  Jeff covers the same chapters but creates his own activities based on his own course learning outcomes. In this way, both of us develop assignments and activities that support students in interrogating sociological concepts and applying them to their personal experiences, but in ways that demonstrate their meeting the different learning outcomes of each of our classes.  What ties the assignments and activities together for our two classes is the underlying sociological concept of the sociological imagination, which states that history and biography are essential to understanding society.  The model we use for developing this thematic curriculum on immigrant experiences – as well as others we have since developed – is the following:  We determine a theme and then ground the personal experience of the students vis a vis this theme.  We then support students in learning the sociological concepts and applying them to their personal experience.  We then push them to see their personal experience as reflective of larger societal and historical forces that are at play, so that the abstract concepts they are learning become concrete.  This approach ensures that standards are not lowered and expectations for meeting student learning outcomes are created.   As collaborating faculty, it is our responsibility to bring the students to the level to meet the standards.  This is the challenge.  Below is the initial essay assignment for the class.

Essay 1 assignment: My Arrival Story to the US

In this 600-1000-word essay, you will tell and analyze your story of moving to the United States in the context of the larger societal forces of both your country of birth and the U.S.

Organization of the essay

a. Discuss your social location in your country of birth.

b. Then, tell a story about your experience moving to the U.S and explain how it was shaped by your social location. You might discuss the situation of your country of birth that led to you leaving. This might include historical, social, political or economic situations.

c. Discuss the similarities and differences between the cultural values in your country of birth and the U.S. Discuss how the different values that you bring from your country of birth can be assets in the U.S.

d. Explain how C. Wright Mills' concept of the sociological imagination – or the need to study both history and biography – has deepened your understanding of your own life and the decision to come to the US.

Jeff

A preliminary integration of our learning community was complete and we taught our learning community for the first semester, each with our own partially integrated syllabus.  But with each succeeding semester, our syllabuses became more and more integrated until, by the fourth semester, we finally settled on a single fully integrated syllabus for the learning community.  But that is a story for a later section.