Introduction

How many times have you wished your students would write more culturally appropriate emails? Or that they would remember the time-management strategies and attendance policies explained during orientation?

In order to support nonmatriculated students through their cultural transition, the University of Oregon’s American English Institute (AEI) has created an ongoing orientation course. This mandatory, faculty-led course meets 2 hours weekly for the full 9-week term, and has helped hundreds of students successfully navigate this challenging transition process.

Rationale

Ongoing orientations have been shown to improve attendance, academic performance, and retention (Iwasko, Keisler, & Cunningham, 2012; Reynolds, 2010; Sayrs,1999). Additionally, we were hopeful that implementing such a course would lead to fewer student complaints, as well as reduce the class time that teachers were spending on developing students’ basic study skills. The Commission on English Language Program Accreditation also requires IEPs to offer ongoing orientation, although it does not specify a delivery format (p.9, CEA, 2015) .

Needs Analysis

At AEI, there is an academic advisor referral system where teachers can refer students for problematic behavior. As an associate academic advisor, I help with the consultations and assist students in learning strategies to help them avoid making similar mistakes. By tracking data from these referrals and by researching best practices, we were able to determine the common academic issues IEP students experience. The common reasons for referrals have been:

• academic misconduct
• excessive absence and tardiness
• being disrespectful in class
• no or late homework
• coming to class unprepared
• using cell-phone in class
  
  

Also, the topics frequently discussed at referral meetings included:

• expectations and strategies (academic expectations, time management skills, working with teachers and tutors),
• academic policies (probation and disqualification policies, student conduct procedure, policies on religious holidays), and
• campus resources (Health Center, Counseling Center, Housing Office, drop-in tutor sessions)
• in addition, we collected input from teachers and staff members via an online survey and several discussion sessions. From these we learned that the issues listed above were indeed sources of concern. Thus, the issues identified in this needs analysis were incorporated in the course design.
  
  

Logistics

The next phase was to have multiple discussions with administrators to work out the logistics.

Class enrollment: We decided that all incoming, full-time students would be required to take this orientation course, which we named International Student Success (ISS), grouped by levels. This format was chosen in order to reach out to the most at-risk students who likely would not register for a class if it were optional.

Academic policies: Attendance is required, and absences count toward probation and disqualification from the IEP.

Schedule: Because of scheduling constraints, ISS classes are scheduled at the same time as students’ elective classes. If a student chooses to take an elective at the time they are enrolled in ISS, we switch their ISS section so that they can take both.

Curriculum

The course focuses on four main areas: cultural adjustment, study skills, integration to community, and personal development. See Table 1 for a brief overview of the weekly schedule.

Table 1. Weekly Schedule Overview

* Success Passport will be explained in detail in the following sections.

Game of AEI

Game of AEI Poster Fair

Features as Solutions

Because this was a new course with numerous logistical limitations, we came up with class features that double as solutions. One such feature is a flipped classroom approach, which frees up class time. Another issue was assessment, which we solved by creating Success Passports and final projects, which are explained more fully below.

We also wanted to provide students with ample opportunities to practice skills, so we started hiring student workers to serve as in-class tutors to work with students on hands-on activities. For example, in a class on emailing etiquette, students are given a link for a video on bad and good emails before the class. Then, during the class meeting, students discuss situations in which they might email their teachers. Finally, with tutors, they write an email that would be appropriate for the given scenarios. It was nice to find out that many students actually use this practice email as a template well after taking the class.

Assessment

Students are assessed based on participation, their Success Passports, final projects, and homework.

Success Passport

• In order to encourage students to practice the skills they learn and explore resources on campus, we created something we call a Success Passport. Students choose from various activities such as “Sign up for and attend one AEI volunteer activity,” “Make an office hour appointment with your teacher and meet him/her,” and “Make a priority list and order your assignments from the most urgent to the least urgent.”
• Students share either a “selfie” of themselves (or their ID cards) doing the task or the final product with their teacher to collect points.
  
  

Success Passport

Final Project

• Students make a poster on one topic they worked on in class. Posters must include a letter of advice for new students. Students have presented wonderful posters on campus resources, like the Counseling Center and the Women’s Center, and on skills such as time management and study skills.
  
  

Program Evaluation

Various evaluation tools have been implemented:

• Pre- and posttest
• Evaluation by students, in-class tutors, and teachers
• Focus group
• Formative and summative observations by multiple administrators
  
  

Pre- and posttests consistently show great improvements in the areas of knowledge of resources, study skills, and community building. Multiple changes have been made based on the feedback as well. One such change is to bring tutors in class rather than to require students to meet them outside. Another is to not require students to retake the class, as this did not help the repeating students acquire the skills.

Surprises

We were pleasantly surprised to see how eager students have been to work with classmates from different cultures. We were also overwhelmed by the enthusiastic responses from campus and community partners who are experiencing very similar issues with international students.

On the other hand, the number of students who do not do well in this course came as a surprise. Another not-so-happy surprise was how this course turned into something of an administrative “dumping ground.” When unsure of where to address an issue or to distribute a form, administrators often found ISS to be the answer.

Conclusion

The success of this course can be contributed, I believe, largely to the needs analysis and design process which involved extensive collaboration between instructors, academic advisors, and Student Services, namely Tony Cipolle, Matt Chambers, and Robin Rogers of the American English Institute, University of Oregon. If you are considering designing an ongoing orientation, I would highly recommend collecting as much input, from as many stakeholders as possible.

Additionally, as any good curriculum should, ISS keeps evolving with feedback from students, teachers, and administrators. We keep modifying the curriculum, and that is why this rather expensive course is still going strong after six terms.

You can learn more about our orientation course at Learning Differences in ESL. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have too, so please do not hesitate to contact me, Maiko Hata, at hata@uoregon.edu.

References

CEA (2015). CEA Standards for English Language Programs and Institutions. Retrieved from http://www.cea-accredit.org/images/pdfs/2015StandardsReviewDocs/CEA-Standards-Redline-Dec-2014.pdf.

Iwasko, K., Keisler, C, & Cunningham, E. (2012). The results of implementing an ESL orientation class. [Microsoft PowerPoint]. Retrieved from www.calpro-online.org/researchtopractice/MoM2Abstracts/501.pdf

Reynolds, K. (2010). Advising students on academic probation [Webinar]. Manhattan, KS: NACADA. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=
s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0ahUKEwiEvcrR6f_KAh
VEyGMKHRETA1oQFgg0MAM&url=
http%3A%2F%2Facademics.uky.edu%2FUGE%2Fguide%2
FFilesharing%2FARC%2FAdvisingStudentsOnProbation-
NACADAwebinarFeb2010.pdf&usg=
AFQjCNGYOwLdSXzffJHD_O0i-MoiTT0DIQ&sig2=
Uri0RKqlDDs8ZetkOQQ1xA&cad=rja

Sayrs, D. M. (1999). An experimental analysis of the effects of an intrusive academic advising package on academic performance, satisfaction, and retention. Dissertation Abstracts International, 61 (02B), 1067.

Maiko Hata is the associate academic advisor/instructor at the American English Institute at the University of Oregon. She is also the moderator for the Learning Differences TESOL E-group.