from VCCA Journal, Volume 9, Number 1, Fall/Winter 1994, 20-23
© Copyright 1994 VCCA Journal
Tidewater Community College is a comprehensive, multi-campus college serving the Hampton Roads/Tidewater area. Students with diverse backgrounds, needs, and reasons for studying foreign languages have typically had the opportunity to study Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Russian at one or another of the college's campuses.
In the spring of 1992, however, the college found itself in a difficult financial situation; German, Italian, and Russian were eliminated from the class offerings. Additionally, the Virginia Beach campus lost its only full-time Spanish faculty member, who also served as coordinator of the foreign language program at that campus, which historically has had the largest enrollments in foreign languages. Thus, at a time of increasing emphasis on international education issues, rather than having moved ahead, the college needed to regain lost ground.
In 1993 the college replaced the coordinator of the foreign language program with an assistant division chair of foreign languages at the Virginia Beach campus and also hired a full-time French instructor. In the fall of 1993, an additional full-time Spanish faculty member was hired. The college has also increased the variety of languages offered and the number of sections taught. Further upgrading of the foreign language program remains a priority in the current action plan.
What made these changes possible?
In the fall of 1992, foreign language faculty from the three campuses of the college met to discuss the needs of the discipline. With little money available to support changes and upgrades of equipment, faculty development and opportunities for renewal experiences abroad, training of adjunct faculty in proficiency-oriented teaching methodology, or a summer study abroad program--all priorities to the instructors of foreign language--the full-time faculty decided to look for grants. Three grant sources were identified: The Department of Education's Undergraduate International Study and Foreign Language Program, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Association of Community Colleges.
We immediately became aware of an AACC project funded by NEH and CCHA entitled Improving Foreign Language Education at Community Colleges, which was about to select fifteen community colleges from a nationwide call for applications. In its application, Tidewater identified three major problem areas in foreign language instruction at its institution and mapped out a proposed plan to correct them. The application was accepted from a pool of eighty three.
The AACC Project provided funding for two faculty members to travel to and participate in the National Foreign Language Education Conference I, held in March of 1993 in Washington, D.C. The College provided funding for one administrator to attend to complete the required three-member team. This conference brought together a dozen experts and leaders in the field of foreign language instruction from across the country to share their knowledge and expertise with the participating colleges.
In addition, Tidewater was assigned one expert, Dr. Fe Brittain, Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, as its mentor. During the conference, she assisted the team in narrowing down its focus in order to set priorities for improvement. The project funded her visit to the college in August of this year to lend further assistance and support to the team in the implementation of its plan for improvement. She met with the college's president and his staff, spoke during faculty orientation at all three campuses, and met with all full-time foreign language faculty to discuss problems and goals. In the final stage of the project, the college sent its three-member team to the October 1993, National Foreign Language Education Conference II in San Antonio, Texas, where the fifteen selected colleges shared their successes and failures with each other and made refinements to their plans for improvement.
To help implement the plan for improvement, the college sought financial support from the Department of Education's Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language Program. Tidewater's proposal was awarded $120,000 to support a two-year project to carry out the following activities:
Planning for the June 1994, faculty and curriculum development seminar on Latin America is under way, as is early development of the telecourse on Latin America. This past summer, the assistant division chair of foreign languages at the Virginia Beach campus visited three potential sites in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and selected one for the 1994 Summer Study Abroad program.
The first two-day workshop on teaching foreign languages for proficiency outcomes in speaking and listening skills was held during the 1993-1994 faculty orientation. Leading the workshop was Dr. Irene Thompson, chair of the Department of Slavic Languages at George Washington University, who is a teacher trainer certified by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). Tidewater Community College's full-time and adjunct instructors of Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and ESL, as well as foreign language faculty from neighboring Paul D. Camp Community College and Thomas Nelson Community College, participated in the workshop and evaluated it as "excellent." Two more training workshops, each emphasizing different skills, will be held during the period of the grant.
Applications were sought from the College's foreign language faculty who wished to spend four weeks abroad in the summer to study and update their own proficiency in the language they teach and to increase their knowledge of the culture. The Chesapeake Campus' Spanish instructor and the Portsmouth Campus' French instructor were awarded $4,463 each to support their study in the summer of 1994. Two more language faculty will receive identical awards for the summer of 1995.
Finally, the first level of Japanese is now being taught, and course development is underway for the first level of Tagalog to be taught beginning in the fall of 1994. The first level of German is again being taught with higher-than-expected enrollments, and a sequence course will be continued in the spring semester. Additionally, college-wide enrollment in foreign language classes has increased 18 percent while institution enrollment increased 1 to 2 percent. Not only has this grant from the Department of Education helped improve foreign language and international education at the college, it has also motivated faculty and administrators to seek new ways to incorporate those studies into an International Studies Curriculum. Although not yet approved, development of this curriculum is in process.
Foreign language faculty have also been motivated to work more closely together in recognition of the need for a college-wide foreign language program to insure consistency for students who move from one campus to another. On a planned professional development day in November, faculty from the three campuses came together to begin the development of college-wide curriculum guides and course syllabi. These guides will help unify and standardize the teaching of foreign languages on all campuses using performance-based objectives.
The future seems quite bright for students studying foreign languages at Tidewater Community College. Working as a team to approach the many challenges facing the program, and benefitting from the visibility gained as recipients of the Department of Education grant and as participants in AACC's Improving Foreign Language Education Project, foreign language faculty at the college continue to work together to insure consistency of instruction, increase language offerings, reduce the heavy reliance on adjunct instructors, and seek out funds to develop, equip, and staff state-of-the-art electronic language laboratories on each campus.
Terry Jones, Kathleen D. O'Connor, and Deborah M. Edson teach at Tidewater Community College in Virginia Beach.