Successful completion of modules based on quizzes allows students to develop a progressive sense of accomplishment toward the end goal of completing the final module and graduating with a certificate in Electronic Assembly.

Editor’s Comment. Wes Popham's VESL class provides one example of how teachers and the adult literacy education delivery system cope with turbulence due to the open entry/open exit policy for enrollment and the diversity due to many cultures, various levels of English language skills, and different focal reasons for taking ESL classes.

Turbulence in Popham's class is dealt with by having a pre-determined, modularized, written-out (scripted), series of instructional modules that everyone must complete. If new students enter in week three, they will enter a module that the class is working on and they will know that that module will be repeated in a few weeks if they have trouble with it. Because the instruction is very stable, changing only when the instructor determines that something needs changing to update the content to new industry standards or to present the information more effectively, students can see what they have to learn and when they will have to learn it. Also, they can take materials home for study. These conditions, and several of the specific teaching techniques that Popham uses that are not summarized here, make it possible for students less skilled in English to make progress along with those having greater skills.

The Convergence of Focus. A key factor in Popham's VESL class is that it has a strong focus on the same thing that the students are focused on - getting a job in the electronics industry. That means it is highly relevant to the student’s goal. As reported in Chapter 5, one study indicated that the closer the fit between the focus of the students' interests in ESL and the focus of the course, the more likely the students were to complete the course. In that study, the course with the highest retention rate was Popham's class.

In another study, the CWELL ARC researchers investigated learning gains in Popham's ten week Electronics Assembly VESL class, a Vocational class in Electronics Assembly (no ESL instruction) and a conventional ESL class. Data indicated that Popham's ten week instructional program, which offered electronics oriented ESL in the morning and vocational training in electronics in the afternoon (VOCED+VESL), produced more gain in Vocational Vocabulary and General Reading (as measured by pre- and post-testing with the Adult Basic Learning Exam-ABLE) than did a General ESL program or an electronics vocational program with no ESL (VOCED).

In this study, students in Popham's 6 hour a day, 10 week program that integrated VOCED and VESL completed more hours of instruction between pre- and post-tests than did the 3 hour a day, 18 week general ESL program or the 3 hour a day, 18 week electronics VOCED program. In order to standardize the number of hours between the three classes and make comparisons between two different tests, the programs were compared in terms of rate of gain per 100 hours of instruction. The Vocational Vocabulary gain of 9.4 by the general ESL program was divided by the mean number of instructional hours which was 87 (9.4/87=.10804) and then multiplied by 100 to get the rate of gain per 100 hours of instruction (10.8). Following the same procedure for the VOCED and VOCED+VESL programs gives 10.22 and 13.45, respectively.