Project: Alignment to Standards Activities related to broader initiatives within states and the nation create opportunity for

coherence and measurement of progress. Research suggests that work in communities of practice should be aligned to standards. One method of alignment is state adoption of content standards. Over the past decade, twenty states have written their own adult ESL content standards that are tied to survival English, workforce and community participation needs. Two other groups that are not state specific, the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems (CASAS) and Equipped for the Future (EFF) have also developed content standards for ESL learners that are specific to workforce readiness and general life-skills (Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems, 2006; Stein, 2000). ESL content standards usually include benchmarks and descriptors for all four language domains. ESL life and work skills instructional materials have been aligned to CASAS, EFF and Floridas state standards for most of the last decade. These instructional materials are often the backbone of an adult ESL programs curriculum. In that way, adult ESL instructors who use these materials are engaged in standards-based instruction, though instructors are not explicitly aware of the standards without further investigation. New content standards for ABE/ASE have recently been developed by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education, the College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS). These are derived from the K-12 Common Core State Standards that 45 states, the District of Columbia and four territories have adopted. The OVAE standards are condensed and written to apply to adult basic education learners from very low-skilled to post-secondary preparedness (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). Aligning curriculum to standards that

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prepare students for more advanced academic performance is increasingly important to support their success outside of the classroom. The CCRS reflect crucial concepts from grade levels K-12. They include mathematics, English, and some specific to language, but not English language acquisition. Major themes in social studies and science have been incorporated into the English and mathematics standards to further streamline them. The CCRS should be adapted to incorporate needs of ELLs who have goals beyond survival English. Once a state adopts a set of standards, professional learning content can be connected to understanding them and planning related instruction. Content standards outline concepts at specific functioning levels, but they are not prescriptive. Teachers need to understand the standards and work with the concepts to align instruction to them. Thus, the process to unpack standards is complex. A recent professional development program, Standards in Action, was contracted by OVAE and developed to assist adult educators in better understanding content standards and aligning curriculum to them (MPR Associates Inc., 2009). Efforts to orchestrate large-scale professional development projects that are focused on standards-based instruction require a great deal of time, participation and support. Adapting the Standards-in-Action program to apply the WIDA language learning rubric to the CCRS could provide a helpful professional development guide for contemporary adult ESL teachers. A framework of this type could be used to facilitate communities of practice within the field.

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Standards in Action The Standards in Action project was developed as a comprehensive guide for adult literacy programs to align teaching to content standards. The project does not designate which standards to use. The project was piloted in eight states from 2006-2009 and included training institutes with information about standards, how to align curriculum to standards, development of curriculum, application and observation components. The guide discusses the intensive nature of the project and has instructional materials to support facilitation of many phases of a collaborative teacher learning project with exploration, development, lesson study and cycles of implementation and improvement built-in. Adult ESL standards and a guide to the Standards in Action project can be accessed online at a standards warehouse: www.adultedcontentstandards.ed.gov. The three phase process is assumed to take 40 hours for each teacher participant: 1. Identify lead standards- four hours 2. Design one or two coherent units of study- sixteen hours 3. Conduct lesson studies- twenty hours The project begins with facilitated workshops in which groups of teachers pare down standards to identify the most important ones. Next, the lead standards are aligned to resources and at least one unit of study is planned. During this time groups are given tools to help build a collegial atmosphere. A collegial atmosphere is phrased as critical friends groups (MPR Associates, 2009). The final phase, lesson study, consists of multiple meetings among instructor groups. One full day is recommended to create the lesson, followed by an hour to observe the lesson being taught, another meeting to reflect and
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revise the lesson, another lesson observation, and another round of reflection and revision. Standards in Action includes a chart to fill with each standard and further descriptors. The chart is intended for either a content area or an ESL standard:

Standards

Skills included in standard

Concepts included in standard

Through a particular context

Cognitive demand/ levels of thinking

Sample activity

List standard

What are learners expected to master?

What information or ideas do learners need to know?

How will the skill be shown? Solving a problem, writing an essay

Recall, Analyze, Evaluate, or other

Add an activity that demonstrates the concept and skills necessary

(MPR Associates, 1-22, 2009) This chart does not allow for academic content to be considered at various levels of English fluency across the active domains of speaking and writing, and the passive domains of listening and reading as the WIDA framework does (WIDA, 2012).

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The WIDA Standards Framework A consortium of 33 states, WIDA, has created an Amplification of the English Language Development Standards that are linked to the Common Core State Standards for K-12, the Next Generation Science Standards and the International Society for Technology in Education Standards among others (World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment [WIDA], 2012). WIDA has created a framework for language learning that applies to academic content at all levels using a five stage rubric that can be used with each of the four skills (WIDA, 2012). The WIDA group recognizes that ELLs come to K-12 with academic content knowledge from prior schooling in the U.S. or from their home countries. Student knowledge and abilities can be supported and verified through different levels of English language ability. Teachers can use the WIDA rubric to teach ELLs academic content in any subject area with awareness of their English language level. The WIDA framework could be adapted for adult ESL students by linking to the CCRS. The WIDA standards framework begin by recognizing the difference between social language that students use with peers or teachers and the more formal academic language that is specific to content, textbooks and academic writing (WIDA, p. 3 & 4, 2012). These are identified as English Language Development Standards one through five: 1. Social and instructional language 2. The language of language arts 3. The language of mathematics 4. The language of science 5. The language of social studies (WIDA, p. 3, 2012).
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Considering student language needs in this way, provides a structure to design activities based on communication ability at the discourse level, sentence level and word/phrase level while adhering to academic content at grade level. WIDA utilizes two rubrics with the following five performance definitions that are appropriate at any grade level: (1) entering, (2) emerging, (3) developing, (4) expanding, and (5) bridging (WIDA, 2012). One rubric applies to listening and reading and the other to speaking and writing. Because these rubrics detail language performance, they can be applied to any content standards. WIDA includes detailed examples at each grade level as a guide for K-12 teachers.

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