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Section 3:
Transforming the Curriculum

By Alan Shute

Alan Shute is Professor of English Language Learning at BHCC and co-leader of the ELL Design Team and the ELL Advising, Placement and Assessment Team during the AANAPISI funded ELL Program Reform.

As an academic department in the Massachusetts community college system, we are only obligated to meet once a month each semester for 75 minutes, which does not lend itself well to implementing major curricular changes, never mind just taking care of routine business. Nevertheless, some years the department would volunteer to meet twice as often without compensation, but it wasn’t until the AANAPISI grant provided the wherewithal to conduct research, fund PD with outside facilitators, and pilot courses, that significant curriculum reform could be achieved, not that there hadn’t been some successful, some furtive attempts to incrementally change the program over the years.    

When I started in the spring semester of 1991 as an ESL adjunct at BHCC, the ESL Program had a grammar-based curriculum: six credits of Listening/Reading and Speaking and six credits of Grammar/Composition at the intermediate and high intermediate levels of the academic program; and four 3-credit courses focusing separately on each of the four skills, listening, speaking, reading, and writing at the advanced level. Half of the ESL faculty were former foreign language teachers who focused primarily on grammar, and half were TESOL graduates who were more varied and eclectic in their approaches to language teaching and learning, mostly focused on communicative competence, the focus of most TESOL programs at the time. There were certificate programs in Electronics and Allied Health that focused on content and career rather than grammar and academics. Years before, the ESL courses had focused on content; some even awarded academic credit, but somehow that was abandoned and no longer supported by the institution.

At that time, there was little oversight of what ELL faculty were doing in their classes. Curricular guidelines were minimal and open to interpretation, and since the supervising deans had no expertise in TESOL, they could only observe how the classes were managed. This made for a rather spotty program and uneven experience for students, who sometimes wrote extensively in a lower level course and then just studied grammar in the next course, hardly writing at all. I remember one colleague asking me how students could write about a particular topic if they haven’t yet mastered the grammar it requires. To which I replied, “How will they learn the grammar if they have no need for it?”

Gradually, the focus of the curriculum changed from grammar to academic skills.  Although all four skills were practiced in each course, only one skill was assessed accordingly. Thus, speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills were only assessed in their respective classes, and writing was distributed across the curriculum.  Over time, some reading and writing courses were combined into six-credit courses so that students could write about what they were reading. To encourage critical thinking, the writing exit test changed from writing a paragraph in response to a simple prompt to writing an essay in response to a provocative reading, as it had changed in the English department. Exit tests were gradually added for the reading courses, and then the listening courses, while speaking courses required classroom presentations.

Over the years, there was not much incentive or opportunity to change the curriculum except for grant initiatives such as a Title III grant in the mid-nineties that enabled BHCC to pair advanced ESL courses with introductory college courses in Psychology, Sociology, Computers, and Business. After one 5-year program review, the Department tried a Fluency First model with students reading books rather than using textbooks. When Learning Communities were implemented college-wide through an earlier grant, there were additional pairings with History and Art courses at the advanced level and theme-based courses added to the ELL program, but it was piecemeal, nothing comprehensive. Faculty could find or develop a niche where they could pursue their chosen theme, but there were still exit tests to determine advancement through the three levels of the academic program.

By the time the AANAPISI grant was awarded, two factions had developed within the ESL Department.  One faction was heavily invested in the existing curriculum, finding it difficult to imagine how all skills could be adequately taught and assessed otherwise. It was thought that most ELLs would benefit from more time in ESL before attempting college level courses where they might encounter the displeasure of English teachers and content faculty members who would complain about their grammar, pronunciation and/or readiness for college credit courses. The other faction questioned whether students needed so many courses or such a high skill level before attempting college-level courses and the effectiveness of our curriculum in preparing them for that. Thus, while one faction sought to accelerate students through the program by exemption from courses, the other faction viewed this as lowering the standards and an existential threat to the program itself. This led to mistrust and the questioning of each others’ motives. One faction was holding students back while the other was not valuing our work. Inevitably, this factioning  also led to inequities in student accelerations through the reading/writing levels of the program and in exemptions from listening and speaking courses. Students came to see the reading/writing courses as essential to their success and the listening/speaking courses as optional, while some faculty members were more willing to grant exemptions than others.

Meanwhile, ongoing changes at BHCC led to an institutional transformation. Gradually increasing contact between the ESL and English departments in evaluating exit tests led to norming sessions, which resulted in more ESL students moving into college level rather than developmental English. It became apparent that newly hired English faculty members focused more on fluency than accuracy. Newer faculty members college-wide expressed appreciation for students’ expressed and implied ideas more so than concern with the frequency and type of  language error. Their eagerness and readiness to work with ESL students reflected a less deficit-based, more asset-based approach to ELLs. Yet only those few faculty members who participated in these norming sessions were aware of these changes. Most ESL and English faculty were still operating under the previously established norms, which viewed ELL student writing as having deficits that needed remediation. Nevertheless, the range of criteria for failing the English Department writing competency test evolved over the years from three errors of the same type to consideration of only those errors that interfered with meaning. Given the culture of academic freedom at BHCC, it took a long time for all developmental writing courses to change from developing a given topic sentence into a paragraph to composing an essay in response to a reading, which required critical thinking, and thus, different criteria to evaluate. Unfortunately, for some ESL students the developmental writing course was less challenging than their previous ESL courses, resulting in even more inequities for ESL students as they transitioned from ESL to English.          

Who knows how long the status quo curriculum with incremental changes semester to semester would have persisted without the impetus provided by the AANAPISI grant? Carmen Magaña, BHCC Language Lab Coordinator, repeatedly informed the department how our students were going elsewhere because they could not see themselves plodding through our comprehensive program, and it was well-known that our numbers were decreasing because of demographic changes in the number of recent high school graduates, political changes in immigration and international student visas, and economic conditions making higher education less affordable. As a result of all the converging factors, ESL enrollment decreased significantly.

Before applying for an AANAPISI grant, Dean Lori Catallozzi attended an ESL department meeting, described the grant, the required work and outcomes, and asked the department for our approval.  Everyone agreed, though some tentatively, as some questioned the need for it. Unexpectedly, the grant was accepted earlier than anticipated. When I first read the grant, I thought that it depicted our department in an overly negative light, but it was a small price to pay for all the funding and opportunity it provided to reform the program. Later, I didn't think that our program compared to the deficit-based university ESL program discussed in “Stuck in the remedial rut” mentioned by Jeff in Section 2, while Jeff thought that those same issues and tensions existed within our department and program. Nevertheless, it started an exchange of ideas and perspectives, especially about deficit versus asset-based practices. Albeit defensively, I couldn’t help thinking that the grant itself used a deficit-based approach to the faculty rather than an asset-based approach in that it described in detail the faculty’s deficits, but failed to recognize our many assets. There was an initial disconnect in that we were told we needed to integrate skills in theme-based courses when most of us felt we already did that.

Few faculty members volunteered to get the grant started, with some wary of the ensuing changes and others excited for the opportunities the grant offered. I think some were hesitant to get involved because of skepticism that things would ever change, or that anything needed to change, and/or the perceived difficulty of ever reaching consensus. Personally, I thought it was our professional obligation as the faculty to implement the grant, though I seriously doubted its ability to transform the culture of BHCC whereby faculty members could continue teaching however they wanted, but I was thankfully proven wrong about that.

There were funds for faculty-driven research, college visits, pilot courses, integration of student mentors and professional staff as Success Coaches and reform of the intake and placement system over a five year period. Crucially, there were funds for outside consultants to be hired as needed but not in a prescribed way. Since such opportunities are rare, it was time to seize the day!

As the faculty conducted research and visited other community colleges, the consensus was that we didn’t need professional consultants with language learning and teaching expertise to tell us what to do or how to do it; we needed a facilitator to break previously established patterns in our interactions and guide us through the process  of sharing our ideas and expertise and reaching consensus on the curriculum reforms we wanted to undertake on behalf of our students. We were very fortunate to enlist Elise Martin, former Dean of Assessment and Professional Development at Middlesex Community College and now a consultant who has worked with various community colleges supporting institutional assessment work.  Elise gently guided us in a way that emphasized our mutual desire to do what is best for our students despite often disagreeing on what would be best as we discussed potentially contentious issues, such as how to streamline the curriculum yet maintain academic standards; at what point and skill level students would have the capacity to succeed in college-level, credit-bearing courses; what would happen to students who could not study in Learning Communities of six, nine, or even 12 credits, or conversely international students who were obligated to take 12 credits; and most of all, how faculty would do more pedagogically in less time when we were already overwhelmed and bogged down in a cycle of teaching and testing that didn’t always measure up the way we wanted. For me, those test results were most often disappointing.

The process of doing research and sharing findings with colleagues liberated faculty members from the constraints of the existing program curricula and levels, opening up many possibilities. In one of the first sessions, Elise Martin asked us to proceed as if we were starting from scratch with a new program.  The faculty was so engaged by the brainstorming process that what would have seemed sheer fantasy previously was actually thoughtfully considered. Discussion about transforming the three existing levels included a wide range of conflicting possibilities, such as clearly defined but overlapping steps that students would take according to their needs, or fully mixed level classes with multiple means of assessment resulting in multiple pathways to individual career paths, or small cohorts of ELLs in workshops designed to support their participation as one half of college-level courses, with the other half being native speakers of English, and so on. The focus changed from why we couldn’t do this or that to what would be best for the students and how we could make that happen.

After the revision of the ELL Department mission statement, our next goal was to develop program outcomes. With this in mind, we started meeting on Fridays (when most faculty didn’t have classes) for 2-3 hour sessions every few weeks over the course of the semester, with Elise as our facilitator and refreshments and compensation to ease the sacrifice. Calling them ELLFFs, we invited ELL-friendly faculty members from other departments who told us what they appreciated about ELL students, not what was wrong with them and still needed fixing. We got their input on what kinds of support ELL students needed to meet outcomes in their courses and what levels of performance were expected. This helped us revise and reduce the number of ELL program outcomes and establish multiple ways of assessing them, culminating in projects that encompassed all the skills rather than discrete testing of each skill.Maybe it was not necessary to assess the skills independently, and more holistic assessments would suffice. This model could be attempted and evaluated in pilot courses that would also include Success Coaches, ACE mentors, and content faculty, all of whom could be enlisted in the assessment of the final four learning outcomes:

Students who successfully complete ELL courses can:

1. Build upon prior knowledge and experiences, using critical reading and listening skills to generate and communicate new knowledge.

2. Develop and improve pieces of writing, considering their audience and purpose, using the writing process.

3. Develop, organize and present ideas fluently, orally and in writing, to inform and persuade audiences.

4. Make personal connections between the curriculum, their learning and their lives.

There were many discussions about how to assess these outcomes and what level of competence students should reach at each level, but it wasn’t until a decision was made to forego the time-consuming, high-stakes, extensive exit testing associated with the existing curriculum and alternatively develop a series of assessments that were lower-stakes, more cumulative, and theme-based that the realization that these streamlined, but all encompassing, outcomes could liberate us from previously established pedagogy. I distinctly remember one of the pilot faculty exclaiming: “You mean we don’t have to use the exit tests!” It was a mutually liberating moment. Instead of assessment affecting what was taught, content would affect assessment. As faculty implemented pilot courses, they found multiple ways to assess these outcomes over the course of the semester and in cumulative projects that showcased student learning in portfolios at the end of the semester.  

Many iterations of course sequences and pairings of theme-based courses were considered, some just three credits, but eventually, a sequence of three 6-credit theme-based courses that could be paired with college level courses at each level was agreed upon (see Section 4 by Linsay Naggie). Consistent with the BHCC key research finding on institutional support (see Section 2), students who needed or wanted more credits were concurrently enrolled in college level courses that did not require English prerequisites, such as math, art, and some introductory classes.  This enabled students to test out their skills in college-level courses and ELL faculty to support them in earning college credits earlier, resulting in a more streamlined and supportive ELL program.   

Following the BHCC key research finding on curriculum, we tried pairing content courses with ELL courses at all three levels, but students in Levels 1 and 2 primarily enrolled in the unpaired six credit courses. For students in Level 3, the ELL class paired with College Writing l consistently filled up first. Students recognized that as a shortcut to their goal of finishing ELL and starting their career path unhindered by additional required courses.

We started with just a few pilot courses, one 6-credit theme-based course at each of the three levels, and some additional pairings with the Level 3 courses. Pilot faculty members were required to participate in a few PD sessions over the course of the semester in which they shared best practices and resolved issues as they emerged, culminating in a reflection at the end of the semester facilitated by Elise. During the reflection, the pilot faculty members expressed their appreciation for the freedom to experiment and engage students in more relevant and meaningful ways. These sessions helped bring faculty together and thus removed the need for Elise to facilitate. Actually, she was in high demand and moved on to the English Department to facilitate their development of program outcomes, but she still occasionally facilitates timely and potentially contentious ELL department negotiations such as the role of speaking in assessment.

As more and more courses were converted to the new six-credit theme-based model, the three-credit skill-based courses fell by the wayside as students naturally opted for the more streamlined sequence. Internal data from focus groups and student surveys tell us that students were more engaged and confident in their proficiencies especially due to the increased embedded support (see Lambert, Lim & Ismatu-Olivia, this issue) which also echoes the BHCC key research finding on student perceptions.

I was part of a Design Team that made decisions throughout this process and planned PD sessions (see Lindsay Naggie’s discussion in Section 4). We decided that full-time and adjunct ELL faculty would propose pilot courses through the Learning Communities application process, which required a theme, plans for assessment and reflection, and incorporation of Success Coaches, ACE Mentors, and Language Lab staff support into the curriculum. Thus, proposals were vetted and amended if needed. The initial teaching semester includes PD sessions in which faculty share best practices, participate in norming sessions, and assist each other in developing and assessing portfolios, all in the spirit of the BHCC research findings. This process proved to be crucial in the program wide adoption of the curriculum reform, unlike previous attempts, which were merely piecemeal. As faculty piloted courses with themes and additional faculty subsequently proposed pilot courses through the Learning Communities application, it made a significant difference in the curricular reforms actually being fully and equitably implemented.

As faculty members pilot these integrated courses, they find it liberating and transformative. We hear this at the end of each semester when the pilot faculty reflect on what went well and what needs improvement. Recently, I was reminded of my first semester piloting a course with the new outcomes which at the time included students’ self reflection on learning, which inadvertently led to praising the teacher with excessive compliments that were not credible. This semester five years later, student self reflection happened quite naturally, with some students sincerely relaying to their classmates how much Language Lab staff, the Success Coach, and the Ace Mentor had helped them and giving examples that made it all credible. They explained how much they had learned about the theme, how it had affected them, and how it related to their lives. Some even claimed they were ready and eager to learn remotely. Finally, most students had plans that were realistic and truly reflected their strengths and challenges.That is why we forge ahead, still focused on balancing what is best for the ELL program as a whole with individual students with their personal needs and goals.