Weekly Report Vol. 1: Prepared for the City of Alexandria’s Workforce Development Center

GLOBAL CENTER FOR REFUGEE EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

www.gcres.org

Weekly Report | 2

TABLEof contents

Message from our President

Facts and Numbers

Intake Assessments

First Week Content and Assessments

Concluding Remarks

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MESSAGE from our presidentDear Friends---

The Global Center for Refugee Education and Science (GCRES) just completed its first full week of instruction. After many months of planning, curriculum development, fundraising, and design--- we are finally off and running.

Our CEO, Lyla Combs, as well as two stellar Afghan teaching assistants, enrolled 13 Afghan

women in our beginning English as a Second Language (ESL) course. Our students are incredibly eager (even pleading for homework!) and showed tremendous progress. The class also took a field trip to the Burke Library in Alexandria. None of our students had ever been to a library before. Now they all have library cards and are excited to have so much knowledge at their fingertips.

This brief report will fill you in on some of the details of our first week. We hope you will enjoy this document… there will be many more to follow!

David J.Y. Combs, President and Chief Science Officer

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FACTSand numbers“This is the first time I have ever held a pencil.” --- GCRES Student

Orientation

Our first interaction with our class was during an ini-tial orientation. The City of Alexandria’s Workforce Development Center ar-ranged for around 15 po-tential students to come to the initial orientation. Each student completed an

initial in-processing place-ment exam, completed an introductory questionnaire, and went on a field trip to our classroom facility. See opposite page for more in-formation about our class.

Classroom

Our classroom facility is lo-cated at the Beth El Hebrew Congregation on Seminary Road in Alexandria. Beth El Hebrew has been a fantas-tic partner and overwhelm-ingly welcoming to our or-ganization and students.

Want to Learn More about GCRES?

Visit our website at www.gcres.org

<6th gradeAverage formal educa-

tion less than 6th grade

0 Students had ever

visited a library

13Women Enrolled

3 Pashto Speakers10 Dari Speakers

All students are from Afghanistan

Importance of Child Care

Our statistics show that for every child a student has, her placement scores fall 8%

3.3Average number of

children per studentMinimum Children: 1Maximum Children: 6

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GCRES classroom at the Beth El Hebrew Congregation

Intake Assessment

Initial ESL assessments were designed to determine basic understanding of the English alphabet. This assessment had a possible perfect score of 24 points. The assessment results (see Table 1 for full results) in-dicated that there was a clear bifurcation of scores. This indi-cated that the class should be divided into low-beginner and high-beginner groups.

The placement exam also con-tained sections on basic num-bers, consonant-vowel-con-sonant words (CVC), order of numbers, and several advanced concepts.

For the first week of instruc-tion, GCRES content and groups were based entirely on alpha-bet familiarity.

INTAKE ASSESSMENTS

Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so.

Galileo Galilei

* Indicates missing data

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Eurozone inflation slipped again in September, with prices rising at their slowest rate in nearly five years. It is the lowest level for eurozone

EUROZONE INFLATION

0.4%Slightly higher than the original estimate of 0.3%, revised Euro-

stat figures show.

FIRST WEEK CONTENTand assessments

Introductory Content

Once students were divided into groups, the teaching staff was able to adjust course content for each group. For the low beginner group, course content centered on learn-ing lowercase b through p conso-nants in the English alphabet. For the high beginner group, course content centered on learning CVC words comprised of the b through p consonants. Both groups were also provided introductory lessons on greetings, introductions, etc.

Assessments

GCRES designed the week one in-struction around a Time 1-Time 2 pre-test/post-test assessment.

For the low beginner group, stu-dents were asked to both identify the name of all consonant letters b through p and tell the assessor the sound each letter makes. The letters were randomly ordered on a page.

For the high beginner group, stu-dents were asked to pronounce a series of three letter words that all use the letters b through p.

Assessment was conducted at the beginning and end of the week.

AVERAGE LOW BEGINNER IMPROVEMENT

32%

Low Beginner Results

Low beginner students showed substantial and statistically signifi-cant improvement in their Time 1 and Time 2 scores. Specifically, as shown in Table 2, the class average score at Time 1 testing was 37%. The class average at Time 2 testing was 69%.

The average improvement across the low beginner group was 32%. GCRES used a correlated samples t-test to examine potential statisti-cal differences between Time 1 and Time 2 scores. The test found a sta-tistically significant improvement, t = -6.14, df = 6, p-value < 0.001 (95% confidence interval LB:-0.45, UB: -0.19).

High Beginner Results

The high beginner group assess-ment had one component in which students were asked to read three letter words comprised of letters between b through p.

High beginners showed a marginal improvement. High beginner stu-dents scored so well on the Time 1 test that there was little room for improvement. As shown in Table 3, the class average score at Time 1 testing was about 88%. The class average at Time 2 testing was 92%. The average improvement across the high beginner group was about 4%. GCRES used a correlated sam-ples t-test to examine potential statistical differences between Time 1 and Time 2 scores. The test did not produce a statistically significant result, t = -1.41, df = 4, p-value = 0.23 (95% confidence in-terval LB: -1.48, UB: 0.481). These results indicate that high begin-ners will need more advanced con-tent in week 2.

AVERAGE HIGH BEGINNER IMPROVEMENT

4%

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Week 1 Summary

Week 1 was designed to both help GCRES understand our first class of learners and pro-vide introductory instruction. Our intake assessment made it clear that our class has two distinct groups: a low beginner group that has almost no familiarity with the English al-phabet and a high beginner group that has strong familiarity with the alphabet.

GCRES’ initial statistical assessments demonstrated strong and statistically significant lan-guage acquisition for the low beginner group. The high beginner group tested strongly on the pre-assessment and had little room for improvment on the end-of-week post-assess-ment. This indicates that the high beginner group will need more advanced course content in Week 2.

Week 1 Field Outing

In addition to the Week 1 course content, the class also went on a field trip to the Burke Library in Alexandria, Virginia. This trip included meeting with librarians, learning about library services, and obtaining library cards. All students but one were able to obtain a library card. The one student who did not obtain a library card forgot her identification.

Final Thoughts

GCRES’ first week showed strong and significant results with some room for improvement. The low beginner class content is calibrated properly while the high beginner class needs additional challenges.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin

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GCRESW o r l d C l a s s E d u c a t i o n , C u t t i n g E d g e S c i e n c e

P.O. Box 874Alexandria, VA, 22313

eMail: info@gcres.orgWeb: www.gcres.org

No man can be an exile if he remembers that all the world is one city. -- C.S. Lewis