PCC instructor chosen to sit on language advisory board
Arizona Daily Star
07.15.2007

 

By Carmen Duarte

Tucson, Arizona | Published: http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/191850 

PCC faculty member Dolores Durán-Cerda was selected to a language board committee on higher education that provides programs to more than 5,000 schools, colleges and universities in the nation.

Durán-Cerda begins serving a three-year term in September on the College Board World Languages Academic Advisory Committee.

She is the first instructor from Pima Community College and the state to have been appointed to a committee of the college board, according to records.

The committee is made up of eight members who advise the board in areas including language academic preparation and curriculum, language assessment strategies, and professional development for language teachers.

The college board is a nonprofit membership association that also provides services in college admissions, guidance, assessment, financial aid and enrollment, according to a PCC news release.

"It was a wonderful surprise," Durán-Cerda said of her appointment. "At the end of May, I received an e-mail that I had been nominated by President Marty Abbott of the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages."

Durán-Cerda joined PCC in 1995 as an adjunct faculty member who taught beginning Spanish. Currently, she is a full-time World Languages faculty member and teaches Spanish and French, Spanish for heritage speakers, Hispanic literature, and Mexican and Mexican-American civilization.

She also teaches Mexican-American literature and Spanish advanced grammar at the University of Arizona South Campus.

Durán-Cerda is president-elect of the Arizona Language Association and a member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the Arizona Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN IN ARIZONA

There are 1.2 million people in Arizona who speak another language in addition to English, according to the 2000 Census. For more information, go to the Modern Language Association Web Site at mla.org and click on the MLA Language Map.

The following are languages spoken in Arizona and the number of people who speak each language.

Language Number

Spanish 927,395

Navajo 89,951

Other American Indian languages 30,109

German 25,103

Chinese 17,111

French 15,663

Italian 8,992

Arabic 7,622

African languages 3,452

 

● A version of this story appeared Friday in La Estrella de Tucsón, the Star's Spanish-language weekly. Contact reporter Carmen Duarte at 573-4104 or cduarte@azstarnet.com.