As part of the CILIA-T curriculum project, researchers and practitioners in Minnesota, New York, and Georgia have created and piloted a civics/US history curriculum that explicitly includes activating learner's background knowledge by allowing time for class discussion around lived experiences in their home countries. The curriculum, written for high intermediate and advanced English Language Learners (ELLs), teaches academic vocabulary and critical thinking skills, in the belief that this is important to all students, not only those looking to go on to higher education. In addition, the curriculum weaves digital skills instruction throughout the lesson, not only teaching students these imperative skills, but supporting instructors who may not be familiar with teaching digital literacy with comprehensive plans on how to do so.
So far, we have completed the CILIA-T curriculum and are testing it in four classrooms. We have also deployed six mini-assessments and six digital literacy videos and conducted two professional development seminars before the teachers started to implement the curriculum to introduce the principles and the content of the curriculum and the research process.
Next up, we will update the curriculum, and run a full pilot while continuing to explore ways to make CILIA-T accessible and available for the adult education community.
This study provides evidence on the use of a curriculum for English language learners that integrates English language learning, U.S. history/civics courses, and digital literacy to improve content knowledge and English proficiency.
This project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education through Award #R305N210032.
