I agree with Mary Ann.  I believe that this will be a seminal report that 
I will be able to refer to for many years.  Not only for using the BEST 
Plus (which is a standardized tool for measuring skill gain), but for how 
many hours and frequency of instruction it takes to have our learners 
improve in their speaking and listening, in general. At the program 
planning level, this information will be very important for program 
managers to know.

Congratulations, Sarah and the CAL team.

*********************************************************
Nancy R. Faux
ESOL Specialist
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
Virginia Commonwealth University
3600 W. Broad Street, Suite 669
Richmond, VA 23230-4930
nfaux at vcu.edu
http://www.valrc.org
1-800-237-0178



"MaryAnn Florez" <mflorez at dclearns.org> 
Sent by: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
01/08/2008 10:57 AM
Please respond to
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Subject
[EnglishLanguage 2039] Re: New Study on NRS Level Gain Using BEST Plus






Hey, Sarah, well done on the digest!  There?s a lot of good reference 
information in there. 
 
MaryAnn
 
MaryAnn Florez
Project Director
Adult Education Professional Development Center
D.C. LEARNs
1612 K Street, N.W. Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
202/331-0141, x25 (tel)
202/331-0143 (fax)
www.dclearns.org/aepdc 
mflorez at dclearns.org 
 
 
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to strengthen adult, family and children's literacy services, and present 
a strong, unified voice on the importane of literacy as an investment in 
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From: Sarah Young [mailto:syoung at cal.org] 
Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 5:16 PM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2038] New Study on NRS Level Gain Using BEST 
Plus
 
The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is pleased to announce the 
availability of our latest digest, ?Effects of Instructional Hours and 
Intensity of Instruction on NRS Level Gain in Listening and Speaking.? The 
digest reports on a descriptive study examining the relationship between 
student performance on BEST Plus and NRS level gain and class attendance. 
BEST Plus pretest and posttest data for nearly 7,000 examinees were 
analyzed to see how their performance at each National Reporting System 
(NRS) educational functioning level varied according to number of 
instructional hours and intensity of instruction. Results showed that 
across all NRS educational functioning levels, the greater the number of 
instructional hours, the higher the percentage of students who made an NRS 
level gain. There was also a general trend toward greater NRS level gain 
for students with high levels of instructional intensity than for those 
with low instructional intensity. Intensity of instruction had the 
greatest impact on students at the Beginning ESL Literacy, Low 
Intermediate ESL, and Advanced ESL levels. To read the full digest, you 
may view and download a complimentary copy from 
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/levelgain.html.
 
 
Other Online Resources from CAL
CAL is a private, nonprofit organization working to improve communication 
through better understanding of language and culture. Our Web site (
www.cal.org) provides a wealth of information on and access to many free 
resources. The following links may be of particular interest:
 
Center for Adult English Language Acquisition (CAELA): 
http://www.cal.org/caela -- Resources include briefs on a wide range of 
topics in adult ESL education and research.
 
Literacy Education: http://www.cal.org/topics/le/ -- Resources include the 
report from the National Literacy Panel and a report on adolescents 
learning English as a second language.
 
Refugee Integration: http://www.cal.org/topics/ri/  -- Resources include 
information about refugee populations coming to the United States. 
 
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