Promoting education and achievement of adults learning English
Background
CAL has been a leader for years in providing resources and assistance to practitioners working with adults learning English. Much of this work has been accomplished through funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Adult and Vocational Education (OVAE). The emphasis on helping improve the instruction provided to adults learning English began in 1989, when the adjunct ERIC clearinghouse, the National Clearinghouse for Literacy Education (NCLE), was established with funding from OVAE. NCLE’s purpose was to develop and disseminate research-to-practice information for all who worked with adults learning English. Through NCLE, CAL staff produced short research-to-practice summaries to the field; provided training for adult ESL practitioners at the national, state and local levels on promising practices; and answered questions from the field.
In recent years, with the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition (CAELA) and CAELA Network projects, CAL’s focus has been to help states plan, implement, and evaluate high quality, sustained, data-driven professional development for practitioners working with adults learning English. Another priority has been to make research findings and evidence-based resources available nationwide to practitioners who work with this population. These resources include a framework describing quality professional development for practitioners working with adults learning English, a training-of-trainers manual, a toolkit for practitioners, and a searchable online database that categorizes and annotates nearly 300 documents of interest to teachers, administrators, students, and researchers interested in the education of adult English language learners.
