Throughout Instituto del Progreso Latino’s 40-year history, the organization has created bold approaches to deliver education programming, tailored to meet the unique needs of its community. Thanks to its innovative ideas, rigorous research and evaluation, and commitment to student success, Instituto has become a trusted education institution, establishing preeminent models in adult education, youth education, and workforce development. Thanks to support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Instituto piloted a new, blended model for delivering ESL instruction and contracted with independent evaluators from the Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL) at Loyola University of Chicago directed by Dr. Malcolm Bush, to examine the program and its impact. The research outcomes were astounding and signal that the model could provide a viable solution to address the significant need for flexible and quality ESL programing.
The inspiration to launch the program came from evidence that ESL courses for adult learners in Illinois were falling short of their need. At the time, the state’s adult education providers had the capacity to serve 15.7 percent of the more-than 600,000 potential ESL students statewide. Further, traditional classes had ridged schedules and required travel, making student retention difficult given their work and family needs. Cyber-ESL is a learning model that combines a traditional online program (for this research, Instituto selected USA-Learns), real-time video-chat and online interaction between teachers and classmates, classroom sessions, and a unique set of supports and enrichments. The program is implemented in 16-week cohorts and over 300 people have enrolled in the program thus far. Researchers found that 58 percent of students advanced one or more grade level during the 16-week period, a substantial gain over traditional ESL courses. In addition, Cyber-ESL students advanced 26.42 points in Listening and Speaking (compared to 5.93 in the comparison group) and 23.89 in Reading and Writing (compared to 7.38). The success of the model demonstrates a potential solution to reach the millions of English language learners across the country with customizable programming, allowing them to advance their language skills quickly and in turn, advance their economic potential and security.
