[NIFL-4EFF:2796] Customer Service Skills

From: Melinda Thomsen (mthomsen@lagcc.cuny.edu)
Date: Wed Aug 04 2004 - 12:37:39 EDT


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From: "Melinda Thomsen" <mthomsen@lagcc.cuny.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-4eff@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-4EFF:2796] Customer Service Skills
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We are starting up a Customer Service Skills course for ESOL students. I
am looking for curriculum that would be appropriate and with a focus
(naturally) on EFF standards. The students are intermediate level, BEST
/ NYS levels 4,5 & 6.

Thanks very much for your help

Melinda Thomsen
Vocational ESOL Instructor
Center for Immigrant Education and Training
LaGuardia Community College
New York


>>> MWPotts2001@aol.com 7/29/2004 8:03:56 PM >>>
Colleagues,

This is a cross-posting from the AAACE list.  The discussion has been
focused 
on the public understanding of literacy.  Regie Stites is the author of
this 
post.

All the Best,
Meta Potts, Moderator 4-EFF List
Glen Allen, VA


In a recent posting, John Comings notes that: "NCSALL research that is

still in progress is providing some tentative findings that indicate 
that: for some of our students our programs can help them increase
their 
literacy skills as measured by standardized tests but for others we can

help them expand and broaden their reading practices. That is, we can 
help them use their existing skills to more effectively, or even begin

to, accomplish literacy tasks that are important to them."

John goes on to suggest further exploration of the question of whether

two types of services might be needed: one type "builds literacy
skills" 
and "might be better organized around a components-based skill building

curriculum" and another type "builds capacity to accomplish (literacy)

tasks" and "might be better organized around an EFF-like curriculum."

The NCSALL research that John describes will undoubtedly have important

implications for adult literacy services, but I think the distinction 
that John makes between a "skill building curriculum" and an "EFF-like

curriculum" needs some clarification. 

Over the past several years, the EFF Assessment Consortium and the EFF

Reading Project have worked very hard to integrate evidence-based 
research on the teaching of reading (including "component-based skill 
building") into our guidance for standards-based teaching and
assessment 
on the EFF Standard Read With Understanding.   

The aim of EFF is to integrate the teaching of skills with the 
application of those skills to real world tasks.  The best "EFF-like 
curriculum" for reading that I can envision balances a purposeful and 
contextualized approach to reading instruction and assessment with 
research-based strategies for skill building in alphabetics, fluency, 
vocabulary, and text comprehension.

For more information on teaching and assessment on EFF Standards, see 
the EFF Teaching/Learning Toolkit at http://eff.cls.utk.edu/toolkit/
and 
the EFF Assessment Resource Collection at
http://eff.cls.utk.edu/assessment/ 

More detailed information on the EFF Reading Project can be found on
the 
Web at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/family/eff/effrp.html


Regie Stites, Ph.D.
Program Manager, Literacy and Lifelong Learning Program
Center for Education Policy
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue
Menlo Park, CA 94025
ph  (650) 859-3768
fax (650) 859-3375
regie.stites@sri.com 



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