Western Front - 1984 November 13

              WESTERN FRONT
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1984 WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, BELLINGHAM, WA
PLEASE RECYCLE
VOL. 76, NO. 53
Faculty union to
push cost-of-living
for salary policy
By Brian Malvey
The American Federation of
Teachers unanimously passed a
resolution Thursday emphasizing
cost-of-living increases as the most
important concern regarding
faculty salary policy at Western.
Walter Robinson, chairman of
the AFT's Salary and Welfare
Committee, said many issues sur­rounding
merit are being dis­cussed.
But cost-of-living increases
are the number one priority, he
said.
The resolution, he added, was a
response to Faculty Senate Presi­dent
June Ross's request to all
faculty for their concerns on salary
and welfare and faculty
development.
The senate currently is reviewing .
faculty salary policy. "
The review follows a 6.7 percent
increase in faculty salaries, sche­duled
to begin Jan. I, 1985, that
included 3.1 percent merit
increases and 1.2 percent for
across-the-board increases.
Increases for individual faculty
ranged from 1.2 percent to 20.4
percent.
Evelyn Wright, AFT president,
said the 23 percent of Western's
tenured faculty who received only
the 1.2 percent suffered a pay cut
relative to the Consumer Price
Index.
Wright said the 3.1 percent in
merit increases is "way out of pro­portion,"
and it's demoralizing for
those who received only the 1.2
percent considering the money
available for increases.
Wright said concern over merit
policy extends beyond AFTs
union membership, approximately
100 members at Western, and a
referendum is being drawn up to
poll Western's entire faculty.
The Senate's Salary and Welfare
Committee is soliciting faculty
comment on salary policy to report
back to the senate.
Les Spanel, committee chair­man,
said Western's merit policy,
which could affect faculty morale,
is receiving increasing attention on
campus.
Among recent faculty responses
to the committee are those from
faculty who received three- and
four-step merit increases, he said.
They have been critical of the
merit process even though it pro­vided
them with substantial salary
increases",7 Spane'l'said.
The Faculty Affairs Council of
the College of Arts and Sciences
also is reviewing faculty salary
policy.
Rudolf Weiss, council member,
said the council's response to Ross'
request was that more time is
needed to evaluate salary policy
and no precipitous action should
be taken.
Weiss said more time is needed
to gather faculty views on the
policy.
The council also is waiting for an
indication from the Legislature on
whether last year's 3.1 percent
merit increase will be an on-going
appropriation, or if it was a one­time
adjustment, he said.
Computers to teach foreign language
By Stanley Holmes
Nineteen new computers will be
bought to aid foreign language
instruction once Western's foreign
language lab is renovated and the
software needed to provide a new
instructional program is de­veloped.
The estimated $125,000 to reno-.
vate the lab, located in the Humani­ties
Building, and buy the compu­ters
has been approved by Western
administration, said Jesse
Hiraoka, foreign language chair­man.
It probably will take two
years to complete, he said.
Computer-assisted language
instruction will provide students
with visual,, verbal and audio
assistance, he explained.
But he said software develop­ment
still is two to four years down
the road. Software that uses.a
computer voice to speak and test a
student in the language being stu­died
has yet to be developed, he
said.
The department is waiting for
that kind of software, he said.
"It is exciting," Hiraoka said.
"Just the equipment to provide
self-help instruction will allow a
student to excel at a comfortable
pace."
Computer-Aided Instruction,
for example, could help a student
learn three or four times faster
than under the current quarterly
system, he said.
"There would be more diversity
with computers in the speed with
which students learn languages,"
he said. "Some students need less
time and others need extra help."
Bob Balas, also of the foreign
languages department, said reno­vation
of the language lab will
begin by first replacing existing
cassete recorders and language lab
paraphernalia.
The walls then will be sound­proofed
and 19 booths for compu­ters
will be added. The central area
will have comfortable furniture
and the floors will be carpeted.
He said one end of the room will
have a big screen TV for foreign
films, a stage curtain to create a
theatrical atmosphere, a mobile
big screen projector and a video
TV camera. It also will include ste­reo
equipment for the listening of
plays, poetry, novels and music,
and have an updated film cassette
library.
"We need to establish an envir­onment
to develop a sense of
community involvement because
language students are studying
communication," Balas said.
"The only community involve­ment
students now feel are the.50
minutes in class. The language lab
would provide a more communal
atmosphere."
It has been suggested by psy­chologists
that if you study French
in one place, you should study
biology in another, English some­where
else and so on, he said.
"You utilize your environment
to recall. The language lab once
renovated would become that
comfortable environment for
learning languages," he said.
The computers and renovated-language
lab are tools to help stu­dent
and staff. But the effect on the
way languages have been taught
will be profound, Hiraoka said.
"We don't know all the implica­tions,"
he said. "But it could well
mean that teaching patterns and
staffing will be reconsidered.
Materials will probably be
changed. Publishers now are look­ing
at the relationship of textbooks
to computer-assisted instructors."
One such implication with
computer-assisted instruction is
that a student could do one-year
language study without an instruc­tor,
he said. Stanford University
has a large computer-assisted pro­gram
and can offer a variety of
languages otherwise unaccessible,
he said.
Along with new computers,
Balas said he feels the time is right
to push for new methods in
instruction. These methods would
eliminate the emphasis on gram­mar
and stress the speaking of lan­guages,
he said.
"There is a big difference dealing
with spoken French and written,"
he said. "With spoken you develop
an ability to hear and listen. The
key is to immediately make them
(students) think French."
He said he bases his teaching on
reality, context and meaning.
"Learning languages is like
learning to draw," he said.
"Mainly, you use your hands to
manipulate exterior reality in
order to realize your desires. And
in everyday life you use language
for that same goal."
He said it is much more exciting
to see his students actually com­prehend
what he's saying, than it
was when watching students pro­gress
learning grammar. It was so
depressing, he said. The students
couldn't use any of it. They
couldn't conduct the simplest
conversation.