Buenos días a todos.  

 

This is my first time corresponding with all of you.

 

I have just introduced USA Learns to the mid-intermediate ESOL adult
learners at the West Side Learning Center.  (past two weeks) 

We have established a specific time and day each week for a Learners’
Circle.  Interested ELL adults and a facilitator meet to discuss, share, and
clarify any topics of choice from the learners’ USA Learns experiences.  We
hope to evolve into a ‘language partners’ format (peer-to-peer) with
language partners deciding on their face-to-face meeting time and place.  A
quarterly get-together of everyone participating is planned for Saturdays,
including ‘la familia’.

 

We are introducing USA Learns to our local library branches for those
learners without home-based technology. 

 

Observation:  Those learners with higher formal education in their heritage
language and experience with technology have become engaged in USA Learns
very quickly.  Others have become so motivated by the integration of
language and technology learning that they arrive early and stay later than
class times in order to use it.

 

I enjoy the information shared through these Special Topics conversations.

 

Hasta pronto,

 

Theresa Pagano

MANOS and West Side Learning Center

Partners in Learning, Inc. & Syracuse City School District

"A community connected by diverse cultural and language-learning
experiences."

(315) 435-4967

 <mailto:manos at twcny.rr.com> manos at twcny.rr.com

 <mailto:manos at twcny.rr.com>  

 

  _____  

From: specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov [mailto:specialtopics-bounces at nifl.gov]
On Behalf Of David J. Rosen
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 9:25 PM
To: specialtopics at nifl.gov
Subject: [SpecialTopics 1142] EFA compared with USA Learns - EFA usersplease
weigh in

 

Colleagues,

 

I suspect there are some experienced users of English For All (EFA)
listening in on this discussion. Perhaps some of you, by now, have had a
chance to look at USA Learns. What do you think? Is USA Learns, as John put
it, EFA on steroids? Do you like the changes you see? Do they address
concerns you yourself might have raised about EFA? What changes are you
looking forward to using with your adult English Language distance education
learners?

 

Do you think that USA Learns has significantly different low(er) level
content than EFA?

 

Do you agree that it makes sense to have everything on the USA Learns web
site? Do you think something has been lost by not having print materials?

 

What features, if any, do you think are innovative, that make especially
good use of a web site as a medium for instruction?

 

How do you address the concern that someone raised that learning English
using distance learning might not provide enough opportunity to use and
practice the language?

 

John, Jere, and Leslie, please feel free to add to this list of questions
for EFA users who might have by now spent some time looking at USAL.  

 

David J. Rosen

Special Topics Discussion Leader

djrosen at theworld.com

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