The Board of Trustees welcomed its second presentation of projects developed by faculty members on sabbatical leave, this time addressing the English as a Second Language Program.

Federico Peinado is an associate professor of English and English as a Second Language who went on a sabbatical leave during Spring 2014.

Peinado developed several Moodle-based grammar activities for English as a Second Language students. He created environments and situations in the form of videos located on Moodle as a tool for these students to expand their knowledge and proficiency in the English language.

“With all the advantage in technology,” Peinado said, “I think we’ve come a pretty long way allowing students to apply grammar rules in more real situations.”

Peinado demonstrated his developed activities to the board and showed the steps a student using the program would take in the process.

Language development comes from a scenario where the students look at a video then answer several grammatical questions and apply different tenses correctly based on what they watched.

The students can check their score afterwards and are provided with feedback to help them answer the questions correctly.

After the students submit their answers, both the students and the professors can see what mistakes were made. Peinado explained this as a great advantage and very important so that the teachers are able to address exactly what should be reviewed in class based on the student’s results.

Marianne Kugler, president of the board, was one of the members who expressed her fondness for the projects developed through the sabbatical reports and stated that they were really impressive.

Another trustee who chimed in on Marianne’s critique was board member Craig Nielsen.

“I particularly liked that presentation and I’m amazed by the ones I’ve seen so far, ” Nielsen said. “It goes a long way since the dark ages when I was in school.”