Low enrollment and limited resources have jeopardized the future of the English as a Second Language Writing program at UNM - a program one lecturer in the English Department says is worth continuing because it is valuable to students.
Marisa Clark, who will receive the UNM Outstanding Adjunct Teacher or Lecturer of the Year award in May, is the program director for English as a Second Language, also known as ESL.
The program, which operates within the English Department, offers two sections each of English 101 and 102 for ESL students per semester.
"This semester we had a long waiting list for 101, but only one section was being offered because the department had decided not to offer two due to low enrollment in the past," Clark wrote in an e-mail.
The courses are like regular English 101 and 102 classes, Clark said, in that they aim to improve students' writing and critical thinking skills.
But, if 13 or more students do not sign up for a section during the first two weeks of a semester, the department will either cancel one section or identify a "curricular need" to justify a continuance, said Scott Sanders, chairman of the English Department.
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"Many of our ESL students don't actually arrive on campus until the week instruction begins and then they find themselves having to go through a great deal of orientation and testing elsewhere on campus before they are even eligible to enroll in these courses," Clark said.
A strain on departmental resources, with regards to faculty in particular, has also hindered the program, Sanders said. The department, he said, has to get authorization to hire teachers for composition and rhetoric and ESL represents only a small portion of the sections offered by English.
During the Spring 2003 semester, two other adjunct faculty members are teaching ESL classes, ReneÇ Faubion and Dyne Macha.
There are, however, currently no tenured faculty members at UNM for the express purpose of teaching ESL.
Sanders said in hiring new teachers, the department has "included ESL as a secondary preference item in job ads" in an effort to expand the staff.
"We're keeping it [the program] as a place holder," he said. "Pending the availability of resources, we would like to keep it going."
Most of the students in the program are international students, representing about a dozen countries, Clark said. Others eligible for ESL classes include American Sign Language students and students who have grown up in households where English is not the primary language.
Students who have taken ESL classes at UNM say they have benefited from the program and that they would like to see it continue and expand at the University.
Mirna Gonzalez de Arvizo, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a bilingual education major in her fourth semester and is currently enrolled in ESL 101. She said she plans to take 102 in the fall and that the program "is going to make a huge difference, especially in my writing."
Gonzalez de Arvizo added that the 101 class has been challenging and Faubion, her instructor, has been helpful in providing "ideas for my future career."
The program also needs to be expanded, she said.
"I don't think one or two classes are enough," she said.
Lyliana Sheely, a biology major from Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, said she is writing better essays because of the program and that overall her writing skills have greatly improved.
Sheely added that she was sometimes afraid to participate in other traditional classes and that teachers in the program "really helped me learn to express myself. They respect all opinions in the class."
New Mexico English as a Second Language programs
l-Time Faculty
UNM 0
NMSU 3
T-VI 5
lish as a Second Language Courses
UNM 2
NMSU 7*
T-VI 10
* Five undergraduate, two graduate courses
