Academic Workshops

ESO Workshop Descriptions

Students receive a copy of their class schedule during ESO once the placement tests have been completed. Students are encouraged to meet with the ELI Coordinator or the Operations Support Specialist if they have any questions.  Below are descriptions of academic workshops and activities.

Academic Workshops

Class Policy Workshop

The Class Policy Workshop helps the new students learn what it means to be a good student at the ELI and to have good study habits. The following topics are covered.

  1. Late policy
  2. Absence policy
  3. Following a syllabus
  4. Doing homework on time
  5. Make-up tests may or may not be available, depending on the instructor
  6. Class schedules
  7. Course workload

ELI Wrap-Up Meeting

The ESO Coordinator meets with each new student at the end of ESO to give them their placement scores, check their ESO passport stamps, and answer any questions the student has.

Placement Tests

What does it mean to take a placement test? It means we would analyze your scores to determine the best fit for a new student within our class levels. All new ELI students are required to take placement tests during ELI Student Orientation. The English test scores are converted to levels or grade equivalents and then averaged to determine a potential placement into a level of English as Second Language class. Descriptions of the five placement tests are listed below.

  1. The ELI Writing Test (EWT) measures writing skills and essay structure. The final rating is agreed upon by a select number of evaluators proficient in English.
  2. The English General Test (EGT) measures grammar skills, reading comprehension at the sentence level, and vocabulary knowledge.
  3. The ASL placement evaluation is conducted by an in-house expert in the American Sign Language Proficiency Interview (ASL-PI). The ASL-PI is a holistic language evaluation used to determine global ASL proficiency.
  4. The Math placement test measures knowledge and computational skill in basic math, pre-algebra, and algebra.
  5. Raven’s Progressive Matrices measures the capacity to pick up complex patterns, an ability that facilitates the learning of a new language.