Hello, everyone:
The question: "What types of workplace (ESL) classes have proven most
effective and why?" is interesting to me. 

In 2003, for a project funded by OVAE and the Institute for Work and the
Economy, I looked at what was written about why employers chose to fund
(and hence also not to fund) workplace ESL classes. My review of the
research did not yield much information on what had been found to work
and what hadn't - there just hadn't been much written about this. What I
did find were some writings on why employers had chosen not to fund a
program, or when a program had been funded, not to continue to fund it
after the initial classes had been completed. These reasons were as
follows:
1. The workers' English wasn't improving as fast enough
2. Workers were still speaking in their native languages to one another
on the job
3. Job performance wasn't improving dramatically.

I posited that these reasons were due in part to employers'(and the
general public's) lack of understanding both of how adults learn a
second language as well as factors in the workplace outside the control
of the language classes e.g, workplace conditions and expectations,
expectations of co-workers, to name a couple.

I also made a few suggestions for workplace ESL service providers -
mostly regarding ways to make the classes more effective, e.g, not
promising more than you can deliver, offering short focused classes with
clear outcomes in mind at the beginning, and perhaps having more
realistic expectations of what a few hours for a few weeks can give, to
name a few. 

I wrote about this in the brief listed below: "Issues In Improving
Immigrant Workers' English Language Skills"
http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/Workplaceissues.html. 

All the reading I did was only through 2003. My question is, has any
would read anything recently on effective workplace programs? Has
research been done on this? I would be very happy to hear about recent
research, especially in ESL, on this topic.

Thanks!
Miriam
**********
Miriam Burt
CAELA
Center for Applied Linguistics
4646 40th Street NW
Washington, DC 20016
(202) 362-0700
(202) 363-7204 (fax)
miriam at cal.org 

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Brian, Dr Donna J
G
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 12:14 PM
To: Workplace Literacy Discussion List; EnglishLanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 654] (no subject)

Hello Workplace and ELL discussion list members,

Today begins the cross list discussion where we serve as our own experts
to each other by considering and discussing issues of concern to both
lists.  Lynda Terrill (moderator of the English Language list) and I
(Donna Brian, moderator of the Workplace list) will facilitate by cross
posting messages that pertain to the discussion to the opposite list.
That means, if you are subscribed to both lists, you will get the
messages twice, but both messages will have the same subject line so
that you can easily discard one of the duplicates.  It also means, of
course, that if you are subscribed to only one of the lists, you will be
sure to get the messages pertaining to the discussion so that you will
stay "in the loop."

That brings up another small point about what you can do to facilitate
the discussion.  When you send an original message about this
discussion, choose a subject line that describes the subject carefully;
and if you are replying to that post, keep the same subject line.  That
way, if there are more threads than one to this discussion, everyone
will be better able to follow each topic.

I'm repeating some of the original message announcing the discussion
below.  Here are the proposed questions as starters to the discussion
and the suggested resources to inform the discussion (and I've added a
resource that has already been suggested by one of our list members):

Questions
Some important questions we hope may be addressed in the discussion are:


What are effective ways of planning, implementing, and evaluating (adult
ESL) workplace classes? 

What types of workplace classes have proven most effective and why? 

How can teachers and administrators develop curricula and materials that
meet the needs and goals of the learners in class as well as the needs
and expectations of employers? 

What are effective and appropriate approaches for teaching issues
related to culture, civil rights, and responsibilities on the job? 
  

Background Reading and Resources
Below is a small sample of available materials. We hope subscribers will
suggest others that have been useful to them: 

Issues in Improving Immigrant Workers' English Language Skills (Burt,
M., 2003, Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics)
http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/Workplaceissues.html. 

ESOL in the Workplace: A Training Manual for ESOL Supervisors and
Instructors. (Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development
Office of Adult Education and University of Tennessee Center for
Literacy Studies, 2003). 
http://www.cls.utk.edu/pdf/esol_workplace/Tenn_ESOL_in_the_Workplace.pdf


Getting to Work: A Report on How Workers with Limited English Skills Can
Prepare for New Jobs (Working for America Institute)
http://www.workingforamerica.org/documents/PDF/GTW50704.pdf

Steps to Employment in Ontario. 
http://209.121.217.200/main.html

Learner-Centered Worker Education Program
<http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/00000
00b/80/2a/14/f4.pdf>


Please note that, if you have trouble linking to any of these resources,
the e-mail format may break the URL into two lines and you might have to
cut and paste the URL back together again in your browser to get to the
right place.

So it's time to make use of each other's expertise!  Please feel free to
submit additional questions and also to share your experiences and
thoughts about the questions posed above.  Let the discussion begin!

Donna and Lynda

----------------------------------------------------
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