Planning Literacy and Language Services
for Texas' Limited English Proficient Workers:
The Devil is in the Details

A SCANS and work skills-based series addressing basic competencies needed for individuals to be successful in the workplace. Already field tested and being used with a number of nationally recognized employers.

Lends itself well to customization; currently being used by McDonald's, Molly Maid, Inc., Disney World, and some hotel chains.

Includes own unobtrusive oral and reading placement activities to determine level of text with which to begin. Also includes pre and post assessments for each level.

Educational program determines level of mastery required of learners.

Series includes teacher editions, student books and workbooks, audio tapes, and workforce dictionaries.

An education and training model offering a menu of education and vocational training opportunities to participants referred through the local workforce development board. Founded in spring of 2000, the model is still evolving under the close supervision of the director.

An initiative funded by the Texas Education Agency as part of the Adult Education Professional Development Consortium, provides staff development opportunities and technical support to adult education providers and their workforce development partners in planning, implementing, and evaluating effective workforce literacy initiatives.

Need for expansion of project in terms of staff and funding. Need for interagency collaboration and support in order to have direct impact on more local stakeholders.

Provide a minimal set of standards to be used by all institutions delivering adult education; online at Florida Adult Education Curriculum Framework. Training available.

There are no prescribed instructional methods with the framework; recommended are performance based instruction, individualized instruction, cooperative learning, competency-based instruction, and computer-assisted instruction.

Could serve as a starting point in identifying desired outcomes, expectations, and standards for programs serving Spanish-speaking dislocated workers. TEA Division of Adult and Community Education preparing to launch pilot initiative of Florida's framework and program. Workplace readiness course is designed to accommodate customization specifics.

A CD-ROM based, multi-media ESL program that has proven successful with diverse adult learner groups. Designed to accelerate and enhance language learning.

Ellis Intro claims to teach basic English survival skills to beginning learners, including those who are pre-literate.

Interactive virtual reality. Combines graphics, video, sound, and text. Instructor and learner materials. Complete management system. Used by some adult education service providers in traditional ESL programs to enhance and reinforce instruction, providing learners with maximum exposure to language.

A series of educational videos and printed materials to help learners improve reading, writing, and math skills. Covers everyday issues and problems, from money and health matters to family and parenting concerns as well as critical life skills necessary to job acquisition and retention.

User's guide includes student self-assessment.

Designed to be used to supplement existing curriculum or can be used separately. Broadcast, video, print, and web components.

Workforce related topics are generic in nature: paychecks, practical math, resumes, job applications, literacy issues in the workplace. Valuable as supplement in addressing needs of Spanish-speaking dislocated workers.

A competency-based applied learning program that matches mathematics, communication, problem solving, and entrepreneurial skill instruction to the individual interests, needs, and ability levels of each learner. Based on 20 years of occupational research and correlated to the SCANS competencies and foundation skills.

Excellent tool but could only be used for language learners functioning at intermediate to advanced ESL levels or as transition into vocational training.

A multi-sensory integrated reading and language arts instructional program designed for learners reading at levels pre-literacy through 10.5.

Can be combined with printed materials and audio and visual lessons. Includes a pre-literacy level. Includes mastery checks as well as management system to generate a variety of reports for learners, teachers, funding sources.

A national network of 37 vocational education centers in 15 states (26 overseen by CET San Jose; 11 operated by other entities).

Standard training courses are 30 to 35 hours a week for approximately 7 months (840 clock hours).

Designed for those most in need and hardest to serve. Participants remain in training until placed. Follow-up is performed on all students after placement to ensure stable employment and job growth. Has responded to welfare-to-work legislation with shorter term training, flexible day and evening schedules, and support services. Offers 30 + skill training options. While not designed as an ESL or VESL program, 45% of participants are limited English speakers.

A multi-media English learning program that provides intensive practice in reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and language usage (grammar).

CD-ROM

Speaking dictionary. Animated grammar reference book. On-line assistance for learners. Entry level component covers alphabet, 400 word vocabulary, and numbers. Entry level, basic, intermediate, and advanced levels.

Designed to meet the needs of garment industry workers with limited English proficiency, with the intent of increasing productivity, job retention, training options, and career advancement (1991, prior to plans to relocate six plants).

Addresses twenty themes related to garment industry.

Woodcock Language Battery and Moreno Reading Comprehension Test were used to place and measure progress. Results were combined with other assessments such as student portfolios, teachers' anecdotal information, and learners' demonstration of competencies achieved.

Industry specific, but curriculum model / development process may lend itself to replication.

Designed to prepare disadvantaged adults for career path employment and post-secondary education in advanced technology fields. Carried out through a partnership of universities, community colleges, community-based organizations, and industry groups in Chicago and Detroit.

Learners qualify for VESL A when able to score at 4^th grade math and reading levels on TABE.

Designed with specific occupations in mind and specific postsecondary apprenticeship and technical training tracks in mind. Closer look at actual curriculum is needed to determine applicability and/or adaptability to target population and communities.

A seven-level interactive workplace literacy course for students of English as a Second Language. The series spans the full range of levels usually addressed in ESL programs - from beginning/literacy to high advanced.

Covers levels 0-7 on the MELT scale utilized with BEST assessment for non-native speakers. Includes placement and exit tests, exercise sheets, blackline masters.

Cross-level coverage of themes for multi-level classes. Includes picture dictionary in each student text. Functional, contextual work-related approach. Context integrates CASAS and SCANS competencies.

Job-focused intermediate series illustrating situations and workplace literacy that spans four major industries: food service, the hotel industry, retail, and health services.

Student texts, audio cassettes, and teacher's guides for all four job areas.

Individual and cooperative learning activities. Intended to enhance development of speaking, listening, reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. Teacher's guides offer instructional strategies, classroom management tips, and cross references to levels three and four of Put English to Work.

Could be considered as a component of a more comprehensive instructional package.

Listening/speaking text for beginning ESL learners with very limited English proficiency.

Teaches language in context of basic vocabulary, numbers and dates, spelling over the telephone, common telephone phrases. Teaches skills such as listening, message taking, leaving and taking messages from an answering machine or voice mail. Contains dialogues and listening practice activities on cassette.

A workplace literacy text with audiotape for intermediate level learners. Designed for ESL with a vocational component, vocational ESL, and workplace ESL programs.

Chapter assessment activities.

Work culture notes. Chapter assessment activities. Responsive to SCANS and CASAS competencies. Includes grammar appendix. Focus on teamwork, individual responsibility, and the changing work place.

Primary focus is pre-employment readiness. Would be useful as part of more comprehensive instructional package.

Competency-based text developed to help adults with limited English proficiency to be successful employees. Based on employer surveys in St. Paul area.

Focuses on language and culture for learning a job and increasing worker flexibility. Final section presents information to help workers understand job policies and procedures.

Lends itself to adaptation but would have to be used as part of more comprehensive instructional package.

A television series with closely correlated print materials to teach English to ESL learners. Focuses on a neighborhood restaurant.

Correlated to SCANS and Equipped for the Future (EFF), printed materials are multi-level, with graduated levels of challenge.

Competency-based life skills approach to English language learning designed for multi-level classes, beginning with level for learners with limited literacy skills.

Compatible with BEST and CASAS competency measures, Texas' Adult Learner Outcomes, and the California ESL Model Standards for Adult Education Programs. Units organized around practical topic and contents such as transportation, housing, health. Encourages pair and small group work. Uses authentic documents, forms, labels, etc. Reproducible activity and resource packages contain wonderful supplemental materials and exercises, saving teacher time and cost.

U.S. workplace context, essential language of workplace safety, communication skills and strategies for high beginning to intermediate ESL learners (understanding oral and written instructions and safety rules, participating in team discussions).

Components include student book, audio cassette, teacher's guide, and workbook.

Reproducible photocopy masters of activities to reinforce, extend, and personalize learning. SCANS correlated. Appropriate for high beginning to intermediate levels.

Single texts would be valuable component to more comprehensive instructional package.

Integrates reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to help learners develop fluency and communicative competencies.

Also available: video-based teacher training and inservice opportunities.

Reinforces SCANS competencies and is aligned with BEST and CASAS student performance levels.

SER has developed a number of products for teaching both work-related English and Spanish skills in the areas of auto mechanics, tire and battery, human resources and safety, and home health care (H.O.L.A., Programa SOL, ACES, ALBA, Cruising Through English). Widely recognized for its employment services, the national office employs staff to develop materials in response to the needs of business and industry. SER also maintains studies of community-based SER program successes.

Learners' needs and progress are measured via formal & informal assessment activities, including teacher observation, testimony from learners and employers, and skill mastery.

The Teacher Empowerment Guide is intended to prepare instructors to create a learning environment with "anchored, situated, and accelerated" learning strategies. It employs an experiential model called the APEX Triangle.

Template format still in developmental stages. Teacher Empowerment Guide is a teaching strategies handbook only. While its intent is to focus on functional context, interactive approaches to learning, and different thinking styles, its whole-part/part-whole learning theory is loosely presented; it requires additional development and does not address literacy and language learning specifically.

Business Access proposes to build customized online communities of learners around individualized training curricula.

Information about assessment and evaluation not available.

Includes 8-hour computer orientation. Users to have eventual access to over 700 on line courses. Plans call for participants to have access to hundreds of online training opportunities. Also proposes to be able to customize training to labor demands within specific industries or individual companies. Targeting welfare-to-work participants.

ESL materials reportedly under development; could not access. No reference to literacy issues. Attempts to access detailed information about programs were unsuccessful.

A multimedia training program designed to prepare learners through simulated work experience in a virtual technology manufacturing company. Learners follow virtual employees throughout the program. State-of-the-art response to workforce development needs.

A partnership with the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce and the Upper Rio Grande Valley Workforce Development Board; also the recipient of a U.S. Department of Labor grant to develop and implement comprehensive training for El Paso instructors to teach dislocated and incumbent workers in a bilingual/vocational context.

Continued funding contingent upon grant renewal. Intended to address needs of greater El Paso area only, but if successful, would be replicable in other border communities.