Research Project

Efficient Strategies For Meeting Diverse Goals in the Adult Basic Education Classroom

By

Laura Rizzo

Professor Gleason

ENGL CO855: Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts

May 23, 2015

Abstract

The Adult Basic Education classroom balances several goals and student needs simultaneously. By visiting CAMBA’s Adult Literacy Center in Flatbush, Brooklyn and observing veteran teacher, Ms. Anahit Zatikyan, I was able to study three efficient strategies for serving the many needs of adult literacy students: strong classroom norms (rules and routines), informal conferences, and humor.

Introduction

            Currently, in the United States, there is a great need for adult basic education, particularly focusing on literacy skills and high school equivalency test preparation. The numbers of adult learners in need of this sort of education is staggering: over 36 million Americans— one in six—has low literacy skills, while another 60 million do not have the skills or credentials to succeed in college (New America Foundation). Due to this need, a broad variety of organizations are seeking to provide necessary services for adults to learn these skills and concepts so they can improve the quality of their lives. However, addressing the educational needs of adult learners is a unique and complex problem, not only because of the magnitude of the population, but also the diversity of the adult learners who are attending this type of programming. In addition, there are several simultaneous goals of the adult basic education classroom. Students are asked to make gains in their language and literacy skills, work toward achieving high school equivalency, successfully transition into more advanced work or training experiences after their current program, all while meeting the social and emotional needs of education for personal development.

Research Methodology

            During my exploration of different adult learning contexts, I was very moved by the generosity and efficiency of community-based organizations, and I was excited to discover that CAMBA (Church Avenue Merchant’s Block Association), a CBO a short bus ride from my home, had an Adult Literacy Center that provided services to over 2,000 students annually. I also was very impressed by the professionalism of the staff and services of this adult learning site, since I prioritized observing a site with trained and experienced staff so I could learn about effective instructional methods for adult learners. I contacted Mara Kotler, the Program Supervisor for the Adult Basic Education Program at the CAMBA Adult Literacy Center.

I arranged to observe an Adult Basic Education class on April 27, 2015 and to interview Mara regarding the program.  Since I was interested in discovering best practices for teaching adult basic education students, I used an activity in Richard Orem’s Teaching Adult English Language Learners designed to allow adult ESL program staff to evaluate programming to prepare for my interview. (67) These questions, in addition to my own, focused on the program’s mission, programming logistics such as student recruitment and assessment, staff recruitment and development. When I arrived for the interview, I learned that I would be observing an afternoon adult basic education class focusing on beginner reading led by Ms. Anahit Zatikyan, a former ESOL instructor with eight years of experience at CAMBA’s Adult Literacy Center.

The Institutional Context

CAMBA’s mission statement is elegantly simple for an agency that provides over 150 integrated services in over 60 locations throughout New York City: “CAMBA is a non-profit agency that provides services that connect people with opportunities to enhance their quality of life.”(www.camba.org) Founded in 1977, CAMBA was established to assist immigrant business owners in starting up businesses and learning essential English for interacting with their community. Over time, as the community changed, the organization grew to address a complex number of obstacles to quality of life, offering services related to economic development, education and youth development, family support services, HIV/AIDS services, housing services & development, and legal services. The agency serves a large and diverse population of over 45,000 people, focusing on, “people of low-income; those moving from welfare to work; people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness or transitioning out of homelessness; individuals living with or at risk of HIV/AIDS; immigrants and refugees; children and young adults; entrepreneurs and other groups working to become self sufficient,” (www.camba.org/about). Though their client population is large and diverse, most of their clients live, work, or attend school in Brooklyn.

When I asked Mara more specifically about the CAMBA Adult Literacy Center and its mission, she told me that she was surprised at first about the breadth of CAMBA’s services as well, saying that though the CAMBA Adult Literacy Center serves thousands of people a year, it is only a tiny part of the larger parent organization. She views this as an asset though,

Fortunately, a lot of the services that our students need are services that CAMBA can provide. So 99% of the time he’ll [Yacuba, the case manager on site] will refer them to services within CAMBA because CAMBA has those services. And the other reason we have that [on site case management] is because a lot of our students are also dealing with these issues. We have a number of homeless students, we have a number of students dealing with domestic violence, we have a number of students dealing with legal and immigration issues. It’s nice to have that included all in one… For example, if students are missing class for more than two days in a row, they have to see me or another supervisor. And I tell them this at orientation, it’s not to penalize them, but if they’re missing, we just want to know what happened. … It’s really to help the students with the issues they’re having outside of school so that they can continue their [education].

This kind of integrated and holistic approach to student support is unique to CBO’s structures, and is also reflected in the interconnected offerings within the Adult Literacy Center itself.

The CAMBA Adult Literacy Center was founded in 1985 and is located in the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn. It offers two major programs to its clients: High School Equivalency/Adult Basic Education and English for Speakers of Other Languages. The center serves 2,000 students annually. The HSE/ABE program, which I researched, serves 400 students. According the CAMBA 2013 Annual Report, 1,050 people completed adult education classes, and 55% of them advanced at least one literacy level. These large gains are likely related to the accessibility of the center’s programming. Classes are offered during four 3-month cycles a year, five days a week in either the morning, afternoon or evening.  In addition, the instructors are generally full time, professional staff. In addition to literacy content, students learn about citizenship and digital literacy. (See Figure 1 on p. 6.)

The Adult Literacy Center is funded by the New York State Education Department and the NYC Department of Youth and Development. In my interview with Mara Kotler, I learned about some of the challenges of the accountability measures outlined by the Adult  Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, such as measured improvement in literacy and math skills, placement in additional classes or work after the program, and the number of students who obtain high school equivalency. Ultimately, Mara summarized the mission of the Adult Literacy Center as, “So our mission, at least here in the literacy center, is to give students in basic to intermediate reading, writing, and math, as well as English because we have ESOL program as well, and to make sure that they’re getting other services to support that at the same time.”

Figure 1: The Adult Literacy Center at a Glance

The People at The CAMBA Adult Literacy Center

Staff

I interacted primarily with two of the staff members at this program, Mara Kotler, the Program Supervisor of the Adult Basic Education Program, and Ms. Anahit Zatikyan, the ABE instructor I observed.

Before meeting the ABE Program Supervisor, Mara Kotler, I had had a lively and informative exchange with her via email regarding the field of Adult Education in New York City. I had also looked her up on LinkedIn and was impressed by her professional background. She has a background in linguistics, applied lingustics/TESOL, and anthropology. She has worked for over 15 years in the adult education field in New York City in a variety of educational contexts, such as the Queens Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and LaGuardia Community College.

Mara introduced me to Ms. Anahit Zatikyan one of the ABE instructors at the Adult Literacy Center. When I later spoke to Anahit and Mara after the lesson, I learned more about the instructor’s background. Anahit passionately said she has always worked in education. Mara told me she is from Armenia, where she was an economics professor and an English instructor. Anahit has worked for the CAMBA Adult Literacy Center for 8 years, mostly as an ESOL instructor. On the Adult Literacy Center website several students commented enthusiastically on how much she had helped them learn English.

Students

All students at The CAMBA Adult Literacy Center are above 16 years of age and are required to attend a mandatory orientation before beginning classes at the center. On the first day of orientation, students learn about the program and complete a very detailed enrollment form regarding their demographic criteria and they complete a brief diagnostic for reading and math. Two days later—so students can truly evaluate their commitment to the course— the students take the TABE (Test of Adult Basic Education) at the level determined by the diagnostic they have already taken. Students are placed in either an ABE reading or math class based on which area they need more improvement in, as dictated by the test.

            During my interview with Mara, I learned that most students live or work in Flatbush or East Flatbush (85% live within a 15-20 minute walk of the center), she said that many students come to the center because they are out-of-school youth or young adults, or they are looking for job security and need their high school diploma to achieve that. Other students attend the center for personal satisfaction. Most students in the ABE program are 18-40 years old, with the majority being high school age to their 30’s. The majority of students are from the Caribbean, many ESOL students are from Haiti, while the ABE program has many students from English speaking Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad. Many students are involved in back to work programs through the city, though the class that I saw in the afternoon only had one student that was employed.

The Environment of The CAMBA Adult Literacy Center

The Neighborhood

It is a primarily commercial area with the typical cluster of affordable chain stores. I knew this was where I could find an Old Navy, a Payless Shoe Source, and the closest Staples. When I arrived, the small, tucked-away entrance of the center surprised me.

The Waiting Room

The walls of the waiting room were multilingual, with posters in French or Creole, Spanish, and English. There were a variety of flyers available regarding services through CAMBA and other local organizations. Many of the flyers were not related to educational services, but rather health services. I learned from a flyer for the Adult Literacy Center written in Spanish some of the requirements for students: they must be 16 years or older, complete the registration forms, and take the necessary entrance exams.

Classroom Environment

The old classroom had cheerful light blue walls, which contrasted with the generic linoleum floor, two long folding tables, and folding chairs. In the front of the room there was a whiteboard, in the middle there were two tables perpendicular to the whiteboard, and in the back of the room there was a workspace for the teacher. Ms. Anahit had a desk with a computer and printer, and she also had several shelves piled high with stacks of copied worksheets and books accumulated over time, and an additional file cabinet of materials on the other side of the room. Ms. Anahit told me that she bases her curriculum on a series called Achieving TABE Success, a workbook series that addresses skills on the state assessment test of adult basic education. The particular class I visited on April 27, 2015 from 1:00pm to 4:00pm was working from the Easy level of reading, which aligns with grades 2.0-3.9.

There were nine students present when I visited the class, which was about half of the students on the class roster. Generally, the students followed the demographic trends that Mara described. However, because this session happens in the middle of the day, students tend to be younger, have no kids, and are unemployed. Of the nine students, only one was currently employed. A few students in this class were from Haiti and were English language learners.

All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the students and all descriptions are approximate based on my observations. (See Figure 3 for a more detailed description of the classroom set-up.)

Figure 2: Street View of The CAMBA Adult Literacy Center

(The entrance is the brown door with the tiny off-white sign.)

                                                         

Figure 3: Classroom Set-up & Student Descriptions

	Name	Description
1	Chantal	African-American woman; mid-30’s; ESOL student from Haiti; moved her lips as she read; received 3 phone calls during class; frequently asked for Ms. Anahit’s feedback
2	Julia	African-American woman; mid-50’s; was bothered that she was unable to complete the homework due to a back pain because she does not like holding the class up
3	Andre	African-American man; early 40’s; ESOL student from Haiti; very chatty in class and greeted everyone when he came in; brought his own bilingual dictionary
4	Gabrielle	African-American woman; late 30’s; quiet and had not had a conference with Ms. Anahit until the day I observed; meticulously sharpened her pencil
5	Nathalie	African-American woman; early 20’s; frequently explained content to other students around her
6	Liz	African-American woman; late 20’s; quiet, but made quite a bit of noise entering and getting settled for class
7	Pharah	African-American woman; early 30’s; entered talking on the phone; told Ms. Anahit that the reason she was so much happier than usual was she got some sleep
8	Stacy	African-American woman; mid-40’s; tended to ask Ms. Anahit a lot of questions about why certain answers were right
9	Michelle	African-American woman; mid-40’s; the only student in the class who had a job or finished all the homework
10	Laura Rizzo	Observer

Lesson Structure

The primary materials used for the lesson was a 32-page homework assignment packet given to students to complete over the weekend. The packet is photocopied material from the workbook Achieving TABE Success in Reading-Level E. The content is this text is roughly grades 2.0-3.9. Students were asked to answer questions regarding main idea, supporting details, and identifying sequence after reading brief passages that were 80-100 words long. The first 50 minutes of the class, students arrived at staggered times and worked on completing the homework packet while Ms. Anahit met with students individually at her desk. For the next hour, Ms. Anahit reviewed the answers to the questions for many of the sections where students applied the reading skills. They spent 3-10 minutes on 6 different passages. Ms. Anahit pointed out various language and reading skills on the board in mini-lessons throughout the lesson. Then, students were asked to correct sentences with grammar mistakes, while Ms. Anahit met with students individually about the answers as they completed the activity. After, the students found the correct forms of words in sentences when given multiple-choice answers. Last, Ms. Anahit made some announcements regarding upcoming events and tests at the Adult Literacy Center. (For a more detailed breakdown of the lesson structure, please see Figure 4 on p. 13.)

Approach to Analysis and Discussion

When exploring the connections between my observation of Ms. Anahit’s class and the course content of Teaching Adult Writers in Diverse Contexts, I was struck by Ms. Anahit’s ability to address several needs of her adult students with one teaching strategy. Adult literacy students are working on a particularly diverse array of goals. In my analysis of the observations of Ms. Anahit’s class, I used three different sets of criteria to explore the efficiency of meeting the diverse student needs in the classroom: 1) the accountability standards established by The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: (the improvement of language and literacy skills, placement in advanced education, training or work, and completion of high school equivalency); 2) Elements of the Equipped for the Future initiative (various skills in the following domains: communication skills, decision-making skills, interpersonal skills, and lifelong learning skills); 3) best practices outlined by Richard Orem in his book Teaching Adult English Language Learners.  (For a brief, graphic summary of my findings, please see Figure 6, on p. 21.)

Figure 4: Detailed Lesson Description

Time	Teacher Activity	Student Activity
1:00- 1:50 (50 minutes)	Ms. Anahit circulates and gives positive feedback to the students. Ms. Anahit invites several students back to sit next to her at her desk and discuss the homework packet. She conducts 3 conferences approximately 7-15 minutes long.	Students arrive at staggered times, but all of them come in and silently work on completing their homework packet.
1:50- 2:50 (60 minutes)	Ms. Anahit moves to the front of the class by the blackboard and begins the whole class lesson. Review answers to questions, generally from the application section. The questions address identifying main idea and details and identifying sequence. She reviews 7 passages, spending 3-10 minutes on each one based on the complexity. As Ms. Anahit is reviewing the passages she also… ·       Gives examples from her personal life about how she has used the skills of main idea of used what she learned from the passages ·       Asks questions about schema/prior knowledge/ similar life experiences ·       Writes out main idea statements on the board ·       Looks at word meanings and idiomatic phrases, writing synonyms and meanings on the board ·       Goes through clue words for recognizing sequence	Students read out loud when Ms. Anahit asks them.    Students answer without raising their hands. Most students provide answers to questions. Students correct the answers in their packets.
2:50-3:25 (35 minutes)	Ms. Anahit thinks of some impromptu editing/grammar exercises. She writes several sentences on the board asking students to find and correct the mistakes. Common corrections students are asked to make involve… ·       Capitalization ·       Punctuation ·       Agreement (subject/verb; subject/pronoun) ·       Word endings (irregular plurals, -ly and –er suffixes) ·       Comparison words (than, more, superlatives) Ms. Anahit’s students understand that during this exercise they should come and confer with her about their work when they are done. During this time, Ms. Anahit meets with 5 of her 9 students about the activity. Ms. Anahit reviews with answers with the whole class.	Students copy down the sentences, and then make corrections. As students finish, they go and review the corrections with Ms. Anahit. After students meet with Ms. Anahit, many of them talk about the challenging errors to find or correct with their colleagues; many students help others who are still working. Students make corrections on their papers.
3:25-3:40 (15 minutes)	Ms. Anahit decides to give them two more sentences after they go over it with the class where they must circle the correct form of a pronoun or verb to complete a sentence. Once they are finished, two more students have conferences with Ms. Anahit.	Students work in their notebooks.
3:40-3:49 (9 minutes)	Ms. Anahit announces some news related to the center. Some new students have to retake a math test. She also announces a student success ceremony that will take place in a few weeks in honor of students who have gotten jobs or passed the TASC. She has the students do one last activity where they must match vocabulary words with their synonyms. She selects words that relate to science and social studies content knowledge (i.e. cause, influence, and work).	Students complete the activities in their notebooks. Many students call out answers as they review the activity.

Strategy #1: Strong Classroom Norms (Routines & Rules)

The culture of Ms. Anahit’s classroom was very focused, efficient, and calm because of the way that she established clear routines and behavioral expectations. This allowed her to meet Orem’s criterion of establishing a safe learning environment, while allowing students to practice effective interpersonal skills and self-reflection skills.

Ms. Anahit chose to establish the routine of having silent work time at the beginning of class. It was evident that this routine was clearly established. All of her students arrived prepared with writing utensils and the homework packet, and almost all of the students had completed at least half of the assignment. This entry routine allowed ample time for students to reflect and evaluate on their work and feel successful before entering the whole class discussion. This also demonstrated a clear level of sensitivity to her students’ complex needs. Ms. Anahit was aware that her students need to arrive at staggered times because of the issues they are dealing with outside of the classroom. Though only one of the nine students in the afternoon class I observed had a job, the majority of the Adult Literacy Center’s students receive other services through the CBO regarding housing or other services. Instead of creating a structure that highlighted the chaotic arrival times of students and lack of preparation before class, she created a relaxing environment that made her students feel successful and calm, as evidence by the behavior of the student, Pharah.

Pharah arrived 25 minutes late to class and was talking on the phone. Chantal asked her about an appointment she made, which made me believe that Pharah’s lateness and call were related to a service both women knew about through CAMBA. Pharah had done almost none of the homework and was clearly juggling other priorities outside of the classroom, but she got to work immediately when she entered the room. This time allowed her to feel prepared and observe her own learning. She also seemed to become more successful with class activities later. Ms. Anahit commented on her particularly good mood, and Pharah was the first student to complete the sentence correction activity (she even finished before I did). It seems that this routine laid a foundation for Pharah to be academically successful, focused and professional, and feel emotionally safe and happy in the classroom.

Ms. Anahit’s interaction with Andre showed the effectiveness of her clear classroom expectations. Andre frequently talked to others during silent work times, but Ms. Anahit gently and effectively managed his behavior. For example, when Gabrielle arrived and Andre started chatting with her, Ms. Anahit corrected Andre playfully, saying, “If you want to achieve success, I told you… She came late. Don’t say hi to her. If you focus, your success is with you.” She protects the classroom rules, but also keeps in mind that the purpose for enforcing the rules is to make sure students are working on their goals of personal fulfillment and successfully transitioning into other learning environments or work. She also redirected Andre’s behavior by asking him to pass around the class sign-in sheet, accommodating his social need to talk to his classmates, and showing him that his energy can be useful in classrooms and work. In addition to allowing for effective teaching and learning, Ms. Anahit’s interactions with Andre demonstrated a another key topic in adult learning, Malcolm Knowles’ revised view of andragogy .

Knowles saw andragogy and pedagogy as “a continuum ranging from teacher-directed to student-directed learning. He acknowledged that both approaches are appropriate with children and adults, depending on the situation. … This acknowledgement by Knowles resulted in andragogy being defined more by the learning situation than by the learner,” (Merriam, 6). Ms. Anahit gave Andre feedback on classroom rules and intervened in the unwanted talking in a very teacher-directed way because that was what he needed in that moment. Later in class when he was working quietly and using a bilingual dictionary and only talking Ms. Anahit allowed him to talk to his peer Gabrielle, and explain corrections that needed to be made in sentences written on the board. She adjusted her attitude around how to teach expectations based on the students’ individual needs at the particular time. This reflected the general teaching style she showed in the classroom, flexibly and fluently transitioning to meet the variety of goals her students were aiming toward, and the broad variety of skills that literacy encompasses.

Strategy #2: Conferences

            One of the aspects of Ms. Anahit’s classroom routines, conferences, addresses more student needs than just the social and emotional needs of her students. She exemplifies Orem’s best practices of knowing her students and providing a safe learning environment like she does in implementing her other classroom rules and routines clearly. However, she meets these expectations of quality adult instruction on a deeper level, getting to know students’ strengths, interests, and areas of growth with greater detail. Not only does this structure of privacy allow for Ms. Anahit to obtain detailed assessments of her students, she builds stronger relationships with them. Since many of her students have had negative experiences in the classroom, she directly addresses the issue of trust between her students and her. Also, she is able to meet another standard Orem identifies as exceptional teaching, giving feedback to students. Since feedback is routine and private, her students are getting more information in a way that it is easy for them to integrate. This assessment/feedback cycle allows for the students to make academic gains in language and literacy because the teacher and student work side-by-side to observe and practice reteaching content consistently. Beyond this, the teacher is also modeling critical thinking and reflection for her students to support more abstract thinking, while addressing the deficits in student skills.

            At the beginning of class, Ms. Anahit used the conference time to support one of her struggling students more closely. While most students had 7 or 8 minute conferences, she met with Chantal, an ESOL student who seemed to ask for a lot of feedback from the instructor, for 15 or 20 minutes. During this time, Ms. Anahit could give Chantal the targeted tutoring and support that she needed. Chantal needed some remediation in writing and language skills, but Ms. Anahit was able to address both of these areas of need with this conference. She reminded Chantal about the conventions of writing sentences and gave her examples of realia that connected to one of the passages. While addressing these needs, Ms. Anahit does not forget to build a relationship with her student. She says to her, “Calm down. You do better calmer.”  Chantal was able to use the long, unstructured work block at the beginning of class after the conference by making corrections on her work. I suspect that Ms. Anahit selected some of the passages to review and the mini-lessons on language and reading strategies in response to Chantal’s struggles.  

            Ms. Anahit used her conference with Nathalie in a similar way, though she had a very different set of learning needs. Nathalie worked quickly and independently throughout the class and was one of two students I heard Ms. Anahit talk to about a social studies enrichment packet. Ms. Anahit briefly met with Nathalie during the sentence correction activity. This allowed her to quickly catch some of Nathalie’s mistakes in grammar, and give her some confidence. In one sentence, Nathalie wrote “mines”, not mine, but Ms. Anahit’s correction was warm and encouraging,  “Nathalie, I have pains in my heart that you made this mistake.” When Nathalie went back to her seat she was smiling and laughing. She shared the silly mistake with her neighbors at her table, and then discussed the correct answers with her peers. She was happy to get this feedback, and it allowed her to be able to develop her communication skills even better, emulating Ms. Anahit’s warm and supportive model by explaining the answers to her classmates.  

Strategy #3: Humor

Even when she was giving constructive feedback or managing classroom behavior she kept a warm and exuberant tone. At the end of class, she called students to confer with her with energy, “Julia, you are invited,” or “Natasha, come on.” This leads me to the final strategy I wish to discuss in this report: humor. Her interactions with Chantal, an ESOL student from Haiti illustrate how humor can help students develop lifelong learning and vocational skills.

Ms. Anahit encouraged Chantal to be a self-directed learner with humor as well. She joked with Chantal who frequently called her name to have the instructor clarify that she was doing good work, saying she heard her voice in her dreams and saying, “I know you love me because during class you use my name 1,000 times.” While addressing the issue of needing to become more self-directed, Ms. Anahit supported Chantal’s emotional need and situational dependence on Ms. Anahit. Ms. Anahit always came over to Chantal and gave her feedback, or wrote the information for her, but she also nudged her towards being more self-directed.

Ms. Anahit’s interactions with Chantal also helped her develop better understanding of workplace behavior. Ms. Anahit did not comment when Chantal took two phone calls in the hall, but she used a joke to emphasize the importance of avoiding taking personal phone calls at work, responding, “Ms. Chantal, you became a businesswoman. All the time you have phone calls. Ask them not to call you…”.  She even joked with Chantal saying she would talk to the people who kept calling her. I learned that Chantal, like all of the other students except one, did not have a job. Learning this workplace behavior, while also focusing on the idea of Chantal becoming a businesswoman some day, made the humor constructive and job-focused, while also addressing a real issue that Chantal could impede her ability to be employed.

Conclusion

            Through this observation, I was able to begin to explore three best practices for teaching adult basic education students. However, this report only hints at the ways that strong classroom rules and routines, conferences, and humor, capitalize on the needs of the students, and efficiently allow for practice of essential skills, and progress toward the many parallel goals in the adult literacy classroom. I also noticed other teaching practices meeting similar criteria in Ms. Anahit’s class, such as her democratic use of the whiteboard with input of her students, communal reading where students read aloud and other chimed in to help, and her ability to apply prior knowledge to fairly short and dry passages in the Achieving TABE Success workbook to humanize them and use them like authentic texts. I am hoping that I can continue to study all of these highly effective teaching techniques in other adult learning classrooms.

            Another topic I would like to investigate further is the dramatic change in High School Equivalency testing within the last few years. Much of my interview with Mara Kotler discussed the unprecedented changes precipitated by Pearson buying the rights of the GED, aligning it to Common Core Standards, and charging more to take the test. I was excited to learn that New York led the way with adopting the TASC test and opening up a lively and democratic dialogue about high school equivalency and adult education. I am looking forward to being able to visit classrooms that are all working toward the TASC test using TABE aligned materials. I am hoping that these guides for curricula as well as the teaching best practices I compile through my future fieldwork will lead me to design a template for effective adult language and literacy instruction as I launch my professional career.

Figure 5: Summary of the Intersection of Student Goals, General Adult Educator Best Practices, & Observed Teaching Methods

Efficient Strategies in Ms. Anahit’s ABE Classroom
Strategy #1	Strong classroom norms (Routines & Rules)
Strategy #2	Conferences
Strategy #3	Humor

		Measurable Gains in Language & Literacy	Completion of High School Equivalency	Placement in a job or another educational program	Social/ Emotional Needs
Literate Students
	Communication Skills
Equipped for the Future Content Standards (Orem, 46) * Decision making skills were omitted in addition to the interpersonal skill of resolving and negotiating conflict	Convey ideas in writing	2	2	2	2
	Read with understanding	2	2	2	2
	Observe critically			2 3	2 3
	Listen actively			1 2 3	1 2 3
	Speak so others can understand	1 3		1 2 3	1 2 3
	Interpersonal Skills
	Cooperate with others	1 2 3		1 2 3	1 2 3
	Advocate and influence	1 2 3		1 2 3	1 2 3
	Guide others	1		1	1
	Lifelong Learning Skills
	Take responsibility for learning			1 2	1 2
	Use information and communications technology
	Learn through research
	Reflect and evaluate	1 2 3		1 2 3	1 2 3

		Measurable Gains in Language & Literacy	Completion of High School Equivalency	Placement in a job or another educational program	Social/ Emotional Needs
Teachers of Adult Language and Literacy Learners
Richard Orem’s Principles for effective instruction in the ESL classroom  (Orem, 14)	Know your students.	23	23	23	23
	Present language in different formats.
	Foster a safe learning environment.	12 3	2 3	2 3	2 3
	Use authentic materials.
	Provide constructive feedback.	23	23	23	23

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