Colleagues,

For ESOL/ESL software I suggest:

1) English for All  http://www.myefa.org
2) Recommendations of free ESOL/ESL Web pages and software on The 
Literacy List at http://alri.org/litlist/esolwebsites.html
3) Recommendations of free ESOL'ESL software Harnessing Technology to 
Serve Adult Literacy, http://alri.org/harness/harnessesol.html
4) Recommendations on http://newsomeassociates.com/ (Scroll down to the 
bottom of the page and choose  "Publications" then "Adult Literacy 
Education Software Recommendations" and look at the ESL/ESOL software 
(free and commercial)

David J. Rosen
djrosen1 at gmail.com


Miriam Burt wrote:


> Thank for your question, Josie.

> I haven't been in the classroom for a few years, so I don't really 

> know what's current in software for adult English language learners, 

> especially for those at the literacy level. Is there software out 

> there for them? 

>  

> How about you all on the list? any suggestions for Josie?

>  

> I can suggest you click on  

>

> http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/SoftwareEvalGuidelines.pdf

>

> for guidelines to evaluate software that is being used or considered for use.

>  

> Other thoughts, anyone, on this topic?

>  

> Miriam

> *********

> Miriam Burt

> Center for Adult English Language Acquisition

> Center for Applied Linguistics

> 4646 40th Street NW

> Washington, DC 20016

> (202) 362-0700, ext. 556 (phone)

> (202) 363-7204 (fax)

> mburt at cal.org <mailto:mburt at cal.org> (email)

>

>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>     From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>     [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of

>     josiekrame at aol.com

>     Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 5:21 PM

>     To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov

>     Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2066] software suggestions

>     Importance: Low

>

>

>     Miriam et al,

>

>     Please suggest some software for low literacy ESOL students. 

>     ASAP.  Thank you so much!

>

>     Josie Kramer

>

>     Cleveland, OH

>

>     -----Original Message-----

>     From: Miriam Burt <mburt at cal.org>

>     To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>     <englishlanguage at nifl.gov>

>     Sent: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 4:48 pm

>     Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2049] Re: New Study on NRS Level Gain

>     UsingBESTPlus

>

>     List participants:

>     Frank Finamore, from the Center for Applied Linguististics, asks

>     that I post the message below to the list for him.

>     (By the way, if you can't click on the URL given for the policy

>     guidance [I couldn't] you can get there as I did by copying the

>     URL and then pasting it in the address bar.)

>     Best,

>     Miriam Burt

>      

>     Many thanks to all of you who commented on the Center for Applied

>     Linguistics' digest, "Effects of Instructional Hours and Intensity

>     of Instruction on NRS Level Gain in Listening and Speaking." As

>     the digest points out, this was a descriptive study conducted by

>     CAL, analyzing data from two state partners, Illinois and

>     Massachusetts. The study was limited, but our intent was to

>     provide the field with some quantitative data about the

>     relationship between instructional hours, level of intensity, and

>     NRS level gain. We agree, as the digest and Larry Condelli point

>     out, that further research is needed. Although this digest doesn't

>     answer all of our research questions, it is extremely important

>     for those of us in the field to begin discussing the issues

>     addressed and identifying future research opportunities. We would

>     welcome the opportunity to partner with others interested in

>     furthering the research in this area.

>     Concerning the questions raised regarding CAL's guidance on hours

>     of instruction and post-testing, it is worth noting that our

>     recommendation (as defined in the State Assessment Policy

>     Guidance, p. 6, available at

>     http://www.nrsweb.org/docs/Assessment%20policy%20guidance%20revised%20final%20May%202006a.doc)

>     of 60 hours minimum, with 80-100 hours recommended is in fact a

>     "recommended minimum," as stated in the title of the column in the

>     policy guidance chart -- Recommended Pre- and Post-testing

>     Timelines. In the same chart, we've provided further guidance for

>     programs and states to consider when determining when post-testing

>     may occur. CAL's Adult ESL Assessments Advisory Committee will

>     meet in April, and we plan to review and possibly modify these

>     recommendations. In the interim, these recommended timeframes

>     should be interpreted as recommendations and not definitive

>     timeframes mandated by CAL as the test publisher.

>      

>

>     Frank L. Finamore, Jr.

>     Product and Service Lines Director

>     (202) 355-1586

>     Center for Applied Linguistics

>     Improving communication through better understanding of language

>     and culture

>     www.cal.org <http://www.cal.org/best>

>

>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>         From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>         <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov>

>         [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>         <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov?>] On Behalf Of

>         Condelli, Larry

>         Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 11:51 AM

>         To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>         Subject: RE: [EnglishLanguage 2044] Re: New Study on NRS Level

>         Gain UsingBESTPlus

>

>         Eduardo, Steve and others,

>          

>         The connection between classroom hours or attendance done at

>         a highly aggregated level as in the CAL study is always very

>         tenuous.  That is, there is generally a weak relationhip

>         between attendance and learning as measured by standardized

>         tests like the BEST Plus-- often studies find no

>         relationship.  This is true even in the K-12 arena.  While

>         this might seem strange at first, if you think of all the

>         factors that go into instruction, what learners actually do,

>         learner characteristics, prior background, classroom

>         environment, etc., it perhaps is less surprising. .

>         Classroom based instruction does not work miracles: the

>         relative proportion of of time spent in class, especially for

>         adults, is quite small and everyoen, adutls and children,

>         learn outsideof the classroom. This points to the need of more

>         detailed look at learning, especially for adults as

>         demonstrated in recent logitudinal students (Reder and

>         others), as SDteve notes.  But I do think there is value to

>         such analyses as CAL's in that it points out possible

>         relationships and raises questions for further study.

>          

>         In my own research on literacy level ESL students, we found

>         that proportion of time attended had a positive impact on (the

>         old) BEST scores.  That is, students that attended a larger

>         proportion of available time improved more on the BEST.  So,

>         for example, if the class met 10 hours per week, students who

>         attended an average of 8 of those hours (80%) gained more than

>         students who attended an average of 4 hours per week (40%),

>         all else being equal.  This relationship held no matter how

>         many total hours of attendance a student had.  I think this

>         relationship was due at least partly to motivation -- more

>         motivated students attend more regualrly and learn more.

>         As for the number of students in adult ESL stated in the CAL

>         report, this  represents the students in the federally funded

>         state (WIA Title II) program). California has many more adult

>         ESL students in other, state funded programs and of course

>         there are many other ESL students in programs funded through

>         other sources.

>          

>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>         From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>         <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov> on behalf of Eduardo

>         Honold

>         Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 6:25 PM

>         To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>         Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2044] Re: New Study on NRS Level

>         Gain UsingBESTPlus

>

>         Steve and others,

>          

>         I was also surprised by the seemingly erratic nature of the

>         results in Table 6 of the CAL study that related hours of

>         instruction to educational functional gains.  A clearer

>         picture begins to appear when you do a simple z-test to

>         determine whether the % of completions of students who had

>         more than 60 hours of instruction is statistically significant

>         compared to the baseline.  As it turns out there are very few

>         significant differences in the table, with the exception of

>         Beginning Literacy students,  among whom t the difference in

>         the % of completions is statistically significant in

>         comparison to the baseline after 80 hours of instruction. 

>         Interestingly, there are no significant results for Low Beg.

>         ESL, High Intermediate ESL, and Advanced ESL.  There is a

>         statistically significant difference in completion rates for

>         High Beginning ESL after 120 hours of instruction and for Low

>         Intermediate ESL after 140 or more hours.  Seemingly

>         incomprehensible drops in the level of completions for some of

>         the groups with more hours of instruction are very small and

>         probably not statistically significant.

>          

>         Some of these results may be an artifact of the study's

>         sampling strategy.  Beginning Literacy ESL shows the most

>         significant improvement in hours of instruction, and, not

>         surprisingly, the sample size for those groups are much larger

>         (e.g. 1720 for Beg. Literacy vs. 252 for Advanced ESL), as a

>         result some of the sub-groups are very small, and may lead to

>         statistically insignificant results.    For instance, the

>         sample size for Low Beginning students who received 120-139

>         hours of instruction is only 37; as a result, the improvement

>         from 75% to 86% in completions was rendered statistically

>         insignificant.  With a sample size of at least 200 that same

>         result would have been statistically significant.   Clearly,

>         the study needs to have a much larger sample for each group.

>          

>         I concur with Steve's observation that level of completions

>         found in this sample was much higher compared to the national

>         ESL population (congratulations MA and IL), but it may have

>         also contributed to the relatively low impact that hours of

>         instruction had on the completion rates of Low and High

>         Beginning ESL.  Both of these groups started a very high level

>         of completions (75% and 72%) with less than 60 hours of

>         instruction.  There just wasn't a lot of room for improvement

>         there.

>          

>         Considering the nature of the study, many of the findings are

>         inconclusive or "descriptive" as the study calls them, so I am

>         not quite ready to dismiss the impact of teaching hours on

>         attainment, and I believe we do have other (better) studies

>         that support this connection.  I hope CAL will produce a study

>         that actually answers some of these questions.

>          

>         While we are speculating, however, the data in the study does

>         raise some questions about the requirement that students

>         receive 60 hours of instruction before taking a  post-test

>         with the BEST Plus.  According to CAL's own data there is no

>         statistically significant difference in the completion rates

>         of students receiving less than 60 hours compared to those in

>         the 60-79 hour range for all functional levels.  In the

>         meantime many programs across Texas (and across the country I

>         assume) are no longer able to count completions they would

>         have obtained from students who leave untested before the 60

>         hours.  Is there a clear rationale for this rule?

>          

>          

>          

>         Eduardo Honold

>         ehonol at sisd.net <mailto:ehonol at sisd.net>

>          

>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------

>         From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>         <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov>

>         [mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov

>         <mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov?>] On Behalf Of Steve

>         Kaufmann

>         Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 1:54 PM

>         To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List

>         Subject: [EnglishLanguage 2042] Re: New Study on NRS Level

>         Gain Using BESTPlus

>          

>         More hours of classroom instruction, and more intense

>         instruction, should lead to better results, otherwise why

>         bother? The real question is how much improvement is required

>         to justify the time and money expended by learners, teachers

>         and tax-payers.

>

>         1.2 million adults are enrolled in federally funded adult ESL

>         classes in the United States.  36% of these students attained

>         a measurable  educational level gain after a course of

>         instruction.  In this survey of 6,599 adults, 60% showed

>         improvement. Obviously being in a survey has a big impact on

>         improvement results!

>

>         Almost half (49%) of the ESL learners in the survey were at

>         level 0 and 1 on the SPL scale, i.e. "no ability whatsoever'

>         or "functions minimally if at all in English." Almost 20% were

>         Low and High Beginner level learners (2 and 3 on the scale).

>         Level 3 is described as "understands simple learned phrases,

>         spoken slowly with frequent repetitions". At the other end of

>         the scale 7% of the adults surveyed were Advanced or level 6

>         on the  scale, described as " can satisfy most survival needs

>         and limited social demands." Even the advanced learners were

>         still at a basic level.

>

>>From the tables in the report,it appears that the biggest

>         factor affecting grade improvement was not hours of

>         instruction but the level of the learner. Beginner learners

>         (level 2 and 3 on the scale) improved the most and were the

>         least affected by the amount of instruction. Of those Low and

>         High Beginners who had the least amount of instruction (

>         between 2 and 60 hours) almost 75% still managed to improve,

>         whereas this only went up to 84% for those who had between 140

>         and up to 512 hours of instruction, i.e. probably at least 3

>         times as many hours of classroom instruction . We are told in

>         the report that 78%, or almost 4 out of 5 of these Low and

>         High Beginner learners improved regardless of the number of

>         hours of instruction.

>

>         The largest group, those with essentially no English

>         skills(49%), as well as the most advanced group (7%), showed

>         the lowest level of improvement, but seemed to benefit the

>         greatest from instruction. The report does not explain this

>         nor the fact that the rate of improvement  sometimes declines

>         with increased instruction.(see tables)

>

>         Intensity of instruction does not have a great affect on

>         results. The largest group ( 57%) studied an average of 4.5

>         hours per week and 61% of these learners showed measurable

>         improvement on the scale. However 31% of the survey group had

>         less than 2.8 hours per week of instruction and yet 56%  still

>         managed to improve. The intense group, roughly 12% of the

>         learners, studied more than 9.3 hours per week. Despite more

>         than double the hours of instruction, compared to the middle

>         group, the percentage of learners with measurable improvement

>         only increased from 61% to 66%. Again it was the Low and High

>         Beginners who improved the most, with the least impact from

>         instructional intensity.

>

>         To me the conclusion is that class instruction obviously does

>         help but not as much as is often assumed. Instead, I suspect

>         that what really matters is what the learner does outside the

>         classroom. As the report says, an adult ESL learner has

>         limited time to spend, "typically 4 and 8 hours per week".

>         Surely we should focus on finding ways to enable these

>         learners to create more time for learning. In other words we

>         should find ways to make it easier and more effective for them

>         to learn outside the classroom, and to encourage them to do

>         so, instead of trying to justify bringing them to class.

>         Classroom time does not seem to have  a decisive impact on

>         their improvement.

>

>----------------------------------------------------

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