Hello Everyone,
Last Friday I was in a meeting with members of the ESL Department, Registrar’s Office and the Centre for International Education. One of the questions we considered was the plight of international ESL students who have completed EASL 0450 but received an EXP grade in EASL 0360. These students must earn a Mastery grade in 0360 before they can take courses in other subjects at the college. They also must study full-time in order to maintain their student visas. So what can they take to fill out the other half of their course load while they are repeating 0360? We were told in the meeting that substantial numbers, possibly 40-50 of these students per semester, leave the college and go elsewhere to study. So I'm calling them the 'lost forty.'
The proposal under discussion was to allow students in this predicament to take selected, non-language-intensive courses, possibly in computing studies, student success, math or DVST math, concurrently with EASL 0360.
At one point in the discussion, I was asked what the ESL faculty members would think of the proposal. I thought for a moment and gave it my best guess. In my next post, I’ll tell you what I said. Meanwhile, let me ask you, “What DO you think of this proposal?” And what do you think we should do about the lost forty?
Express your opinion by responding to the poll on the upper right of this page. Then, feel free to elaborate by commenting on this post.
I look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Jonathan
Posts
If allowing students to take "non-language instensive" courses along with a second or third try at 0360 is supported by faculty, then I would recommend being very selective in exactly what regular courses the student is allowed to take.
ReplyDeleteI would also recommend that 0360 be changed to a graded course as 0460 is, rather than a Mastery course, since it is a required language standard for many regular courses and programs.
Allowing a student to attempt 0360 again along with taking regular courses should be treated as a form of academic probation and rules and guidelines need to be established including (possibly) an achieved minimum academic standard along with a signed probationary contract; otherwise, this situation will not likely be viewed as the priviledge it is.