Hi,
 
David has posed several intriguing questions and has generously given us
the option of responding to them in the order we wish.
 
I will take him up on this and answer the last two on the relationship
between scheduled hours (#13) and reading and the effect of teacher
characteristics on student learning (#14).
 
We used several measures of student persistence and instructional
"intensity" (defined various ways and explained in the complete final
report of the study) in our analysis to examine the effects of these
measures on instruction.  Scheduled hours was simply how many hours per
week the class was scheduled to meet, which ranged from 4 to 20 hours
among our classes.  For measures of reading basic skills, the longer the
scheduled time the less learning.  This is a counter intuitive finding
and difficult to explain because we don't have data to explain it.  We
speculate in the report that this may be due to repetitiveness -- the
class going over and over the same basic reading skills. Perhaps the
students in these classes were bored or already new the concepts being
taught so more of the same did not help them.  However, this is my
speculation, as we did not have the data to examine this.
 
The other finding of longer scheduled hours relating to improvements in
reading comprehension is more what we might expect but we again don't
have the data to explain it.  My guess is the longer classes may have
had more challenging or a broader range of materials and instruction in
reading comprehension that helped students. 
 
Regarding the impact of teachers on student outcomes, as noted in the
report we could not study this because teachers were too much alike --
there was not enough variation in their training, experience and
background for us to compare them (in addition we didn't really have
enough teachers to do the complex quantitative analysis we used).  There
was not a more homogeneous sample because we selected the class to be in
the study, not the teacher.  We simply don't know if teachers with the
characteristics we found are typical of ESL literacy teachers in general
or if this was an anomaly of our classes.  We might have found (and what
we were hoping to find) is whether training in literacy and/or
experience teaching adult ESL literacy students would have a positive
effect on student acquisition of literacy and language. 

________________________________

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 2:40 AM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 268] What Works for Adult ESL/ESOL Students
Study


Hello Heide,

Thanks for your replies to the questions posed so far.  I hope we will
have lots more questions from subscribers to this discussion, including
follow-up questions and comments. I have a bunch of questions that
you'll find below, mostly my own, but also some that people have sent me
to post.  I have organized the questions by article rather than by topic
area, but please feel free to address them in any order that makes sense
to you and over the course of the week if you like. They are addressed
to both you and Larry.

Here are the questions:



1.	From your perspectives, what are the most important and
interesting findings of the study? 
2.	In the Real World Research article, you write "Indeed,
scientific research combined with professional wisdom is the definition
of "evidence-based research" put forth by the research branch of the
U.S. Department of Education.<!--[if
!supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]-->  Does the U.S. Department of
Education have a definition of "professional wisdom" specifically,
"professional wisdom in adult literacy education"? Do you have a
definition that _you_ prefer? 
3.	In the Real World Research article you write "we found that the
teachers in our study we[re] not trained in teaching literacy.  They
were mostly using the materials and methods that they would normally use
in regular ESL classes aimed at more literate students." From your
experience is this typical of adult ESL/ESOL practice in the U.S., and
if so, what needs to be done about it? 
4.	Do you know of ESL/ESOL studies (completed or planned) which
(will) look at how students acquire literacy (or language) learning from
experiences outside of class? 
5.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "It is worth
noting that we found only two studies [ of the 17 studies of literacy
interventions] that used adult ESL students ....Thus, the effects of
literacy interventions on literacy and language development among adult
ESL learners lacks a research base ...." Are you aware of any other
efforts that are planned to address this lack of research on ESL
literacy? 
6.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "Given that adult
immigrants and refugees come to classes to learn the skills needed in
the community and at work, and given that only a few hours of classes
are offered in a week, an approach that connects classroom learning with
the community and encourages language and literacy use outside of school
shows a great deal of promise." You have given some examples in the
article. Can you review those here and  give additional examples of how
ESL/ESOL teachers could connect classroom learning with the community to
use language and literacy outside of school? 
7.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "Video, or
multimedia containing video, shows particular promise for language
instruction, since language and content are presented in a variety of
modalities (visual, auditory, text based) that reinforce each other. As
such, they offer an immediate context for language learning that is not
print dependent and allows for varied inputs in terms of language
variation (regional accents and foreign dialects), as well as variation
in the speed of discourse, thus allowing for increases in listening
comprehension and understanding of the pronunciation of American
English. In addition, skill and drill software" Could you elaborate? Can
you give us some examples of effective and creative uses of video or
multimedia used for language and literacy learning? 
8.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "Since distance
learning is often problematic for non-traditional learners with low
levels of skills and little experience with technology, a model that
integrates multimedia with classroom teaching might have greater success
than distance learning models, at least for students at the very
beginning levels of English proficiency. Such a model could also include
language learning tasks designed to help students learn on their own
from TV, video, and film, thereby possibly increasing both language
skills and language awareness. We find this an option worth
considering." Are you - or is anyone - aware of work being done to help
students learn on their own from TV, video and film? 
9.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "The results of
studies that look at the relationship between strategy-based teaching
and reading comprehension look promising, as do the studies that have
examined the effects of extended reading on general reading skills and
vocabulary acquisition in particular. This latter approach has been
successful with both L1 and L2 readers (Day and Bamford, 1998; Pilgreen
and Krashen, 1993).  However, both approaches assume at least an
intermediate level of English proficiency." Can you elaborate on the
relationship between strategy-based teaching and reading comprehension?
What is strategy-based teaching? 
10.	In the Real World Research article, you wrote "Case studies of
individual programs that use technology creatively and show high rates
of success in terms of student outcomes can help provide explanations as
to why technology might be worth considering in research and practice.
The Socorro Family Literacy Program near El Paso on the U.S.-Mexico
border, for example, has adopted a model that asks learners to work in
teams and create projects with technologies such as PowerPoint or
video.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]-->  Each year the
students are part of a showcase where they present their finished
projects to an English speaking audience consisting of other students,
parents, school administrators and community members such as social
workers and officials from the Workforce Board. Investigations into the
effect of innovative approaches to technology integration can offer
insights into what it takes to engage learners and help us see the
difference in learning that occurs when adult literacy is used for real
world purposes beyond the classroom. " Can you tell us more about the
Socorro Family Literacy Program model? 
11.	A key recommendation laid out in the Real World Research article
is this: "A direct literacy teaching intervention we envision would
target skills and strategies found to be effective in the teaching of
reading and writing, such as creating phonemic awareness, developing
fluency or automaticity, modeling comprehension strategies, increasing
vocabulary, and fostering writing skills.The point of such an
intervention would not be to change teaching to a phonics based approach
(and make ESL teachers "phonicators") but to find ways to integrate the
teaching of basic literacy skills into an ESL curriculum so that
non-literate or low literate students get a chance to develop the skills
that they have not had the chance to attain in their first language. An
intervention study of this sort would then allow us to see whether an
overt focus on underlying skills associated with reading and writing
will facilitate the literacy acquisition process." The questions is, can
this be done now within existing, limited intensity ESL/ESOL programs,
or do you think this requires expanding the hours of instruction? 
12.	You have proposed testing this hypothesis: "An instructional
program that combines native language literacy and the teaching of oral
communication skills in English will increase both the literacy and
language skills of adults who are not literate in their native language.
Use of the native language as part of ESL instruction is likely to aid
students in the cognitive processing of new information and might result
in greater gains in literacy as well."  This appears to be bucking the
trend of eliminating bilingual education.  Has this been a politically
controversial part of your study? 
13.	In the Tilberg presentation, you write "Class Variables. The
only class variable related to growth in basic reading skills was the
length of the scheduled hours per week of class meeting time.  Students
in classes with longer scheduled hours showed less growth than students
in classes with fewer scheduled hours.  Other things being equal,
including students' attendance and persistence, the longer the class's
weekly scheduled meeting hours, the slower the rate of students'
learning in basic reading skills."  However, later you write "The
scheduled length of class in hours per week was also related to positive
growth in reading comprehension.  Students in class with more scheduled
hours per week had more growth in reading comprehension". Could you
comment on the meaning of these two findings?  What exactly does "longer
scheduled hours" mean, and given that it is positively related to growth
in basic reading skills, but negatively related to reading
comprehension, how should this variable be treated in the design of
ESL/ESOL class schedules? 
14.	In the Tilberg presentation, you write "We also looked at
whether teacher background and training had an effect on adult ESL
literacy student learning.  We found that no teacher variables were
related to any of the student outcome measures used in the study.
However, the 38 teachers in the study were relatively homogeneous.  They
were generally new, inexperienced teachers and although well
credentialed, had little training or professional development in
teaching adult ESL or ESL literacy.  "  Can you tell us why there was
not a more hetereogeneous sample of teachers, and what differences you
think that that might have made in the study? 

<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->

________________________________

<!--[endif]--> 

<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]--> Whitehurst, G. (2002).
Evidence-Based Education.  U.S. Department of Education.

<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]--> For a fuller description
see Wrigley, H. S. (forthcoming).  Research in Action: Teachers,
Projects and High End Technologies, Texas Center for the Advancement of
Adult Literacy and Learning.



David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net

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