COMMUNITY COLLEGE CONNECTION

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
PART 2: DESIGNING YOUR FRENCH PROGRAM

Reprinted from the AATF National Bulletin, Vol.27, No. 3 (January 2002)

If you are a typical full time or adjunct French instructor in a community college, you are probably teaching within a program that is already in place. My community college is relatively young (we opened our doors in 1987), and I was the first French instructor at my college. Yet when I was hired as an adjunct instructor the very first fall semester, many elements of our current program had already been established. I imagine that our program was designed by an administrator who had "borrowed" the course titles, descriptions, and credit hours from other institutions. For that first year, my only input was choosing a textbook and fitting my curriculum into an existing framework.

During the first few years of our college there were no full-time foreign language instructors. Within a year I was the "unofficial" department chair, and two and a half years later I was the first foreign language teacher offered a full-time position. All of this did not happen by accident. I had a plan, and through a combination of sheer determination and good luck, I ended up just where I wanted to be.

Like the majority of community college faculty, I had worked as a part-time instructor for many years before being hired full time. During my adjunct years, I had ample opportunity to experience and observe various French programs in action. I experimented with various teaching methods and took a variety of graduate education courses. When I was finally in a position to make some significant program decisions, I had formulated some good working theories of my own. Here are my suggestions:

Work with what you cannot change. When I came to my college, the program was set up with four-credit-hour courses offered in both the day (three times a week) and evening (once a week) format. The evening classes were and continue to be a strain—three and a half hours in one sitting. Our first dean of instruction was adamant about covering exactly the same curriculum in both day and evening classes. I know that theoretically our evening format is a horrible way to learn a foreign language, but whenever we survey the students they insist that they can come only one night a week and would not take the course in a two-evening-a-week format. So we have learned to make the best of it, reviewing more, assigning some material as independent study, providing a support system outside of class, and varying our activities in the evening classes to minimize the inevitable cognitive overload. I believe that retention suffers from semester to semester because of this unfortunate evening schedule, but the payoff is a program where students can move freely between the day and evening classes as their life and work schedules change.

Keep in touch and stay informed. I have been extremely fortunate in having had significant input into my college’s foreign language program. I have been able to chose textbooks, rewrite course descriptions and curricula, develop four new French courses, influence our general education policies to encourage foreign language study, and as program coordinator I have established a strong global studies program that supports foreign language. My experience has demonstrated that you can influence your program even while working part time as the only French teacher on campus. If you are currently an adjunct instructor, talk to everyone and learn everything you can about the language program at the school(s) where you teach. Part time or full time, try to stay informed and get involved with the decision-making processes. Take education courses, and go to conferences where you can network and learn about the latest issues, programs, and methodologies. Get to know all of the other language teachers and program administrators at your institution(s). Remember, even if you are not in charge, you can influence decisions and changes in your program through the knowledgeable input and suggestions that you provide to your superiors and fellow faculty members.

I welcome your comments on the Community College Connection articles, and would appreciate your feedback and suggestions for future subjects you would like to see discussed. I would especially enjoy knowing about your community college success stories.