About this site

REEPworld is an ongoing project of the Arlington Education & Employment Program (REEP) in Arlington, Virginia. This project was funded initially, in part, by an English Language Civics (EL Civics) grant awarded by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2004-2005. Development continues to reflect ongoing development within various REEP curricula as well as design improvements.

The goal of this project is to provide adult English language learners with level-appropriate, web-based activities that target lifeskill areas, while also preparing students to use the Internet as a tool for learning and participating in their communities.

The lessons contained in the English Practice section of this website are intended for adult English language learners and were designed with low-proficiency and low-literacy learners in mind.

Modifiable and printable materials are provided for teachers in the Teacher Resources section as complement to the online lessons, in support of student comprehension as well as differentiated instructional considerations.

REEPworld is unique in the following respects:

users may access this site free of charge and without a login
navigation tools are simple and clear, allowing low-literacy/ low-level learners to explore the site easily
lessons are based on lifeskills content , promoting language skill development as well as content-based learning
lessons and activities are pedagogically sequenced to support student learning
lessons make use of graphics and sound that enhance learning
lessons were designed by a team of ESL teachers and have been piloted with adult ESL students

We are very interested in your feedback. If you have questions or comments, please contact us.

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Content Development Team: REEPworld
	Project Manager 2008-present Content Development, Design, Teacher Resources	Michele Cona
	Content Consultant, Co-Coordinator 2007-2014	Donna Moss
	Project Coordinator 2004-2007	Karen Taylor
	Content Development Team 2006-2008	Deborah Jones Ruth Takushi Melanie Siteki Sarah Young
	Content Development Team 2004-2005	Deborah Jones Michael Elkhawas Ruth Takushi Melanie Siteki Sarah Young
	Family English Stories: Authors Hanna's Story: Ruth Takushi Victor's Story: Sarah Young Schwan's Story: Melanie Siteki Newaz's Story: Melanie Siteki Sara's Story: Debbie Jones	Narrators Hanna's Story: Eden Husen* Victor's Story: Eduardo Rivera* Schwan's Story: Pshko Siteki Newaz's Story: Suham Zangana* Sara's Story: Urna*
	Health English: Contributors Donna Moss, Michele Cona, Karen Taylor Ruth Takushi, Sarah Young, Melanie Siteki, Debbie Jones	Narrators Teachers, volunteers, and staff at the Clarendon Education Center generously contributed their time and voiceover talents for recordings in this unit.
Illustration by Miguel De Angel	Work English Stories: Authors Abdul's Story: Debbie Jones Marta's Story: Sarah Young Gaspa's Story: Melanie Siteki Samantha's Story: Ruth Takushi	Narrators Abdul's Story: Mohamed Tanziti* Marta's Story:Lillian Quinteros Gaspa's Story*: M. Salief Samantha's Story: Karonline Mori Hogrovejo
	Video production: "What's the Matter?" Producer: Karen Taylor Director/ Writer: Judith Brussell Lesson Developer: Ruth Takushi Camera: Darrell Johnson Sound: Jeremy Koller Note: This video is in the final stages of post-production. Check back for information on ordering your own DVD or VHS copy.	Actors Wife: Larisa Andreyewsky* Therapist: Marta Gomez* Co-worker: Christian Jones Boss: Lillian Quinteros Roberto: Eduardo Rivera*
	The characters and events depicted in "What's the Matter" and in each of the Family, Health, and Work English stories, while based on common immigrant experiences, are entirely fictional. REEP thanks the many students who contributed their voices, their images, their ideas and their feedback on these stories.	* REEP Student ** REEP Staff

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Design Considerations

We have learned a great deal in the process of developing this site. The notes below are provided in hopes that other designers will benefit from our insights.

Readability, Usability and Task Design
In an effort to create a reader-friendly website, we made a general effort to use dark-colored sans-sarif fonts (in this case, Arial) set against light backgrounds. To accommodate low-literacy learners and older adults, lessons feature large-size text whenever feasible. Jacob Nielsen's article on Low-Literacy Users has been a helpful resource, as has James Gee's book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy.

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Technology

The initial version of REEPworld was provided technical support (2004-2007) by the Center for Innovative Communities. Special thanks to Jeffrey Elkner, Jeff Coupe, Aziz Kaddouri and Eldar Omuraliev for their technical assistance, their enthusiasm for web-based education projects, and their willingness to work through any problem, big or small, all with good humor.
Additional thanks goes to Martin Holmes, Stuart Arniel, and many other members of the Hot Potatoes Users Yahoo Group who helped us find programming solutions to improve the usability of REEPworld. A special round of thanks goes to fellow ESL teacher John Horbacz, who provided thoughtful feedback, ideas and solutions to various problems.
This site is generously hosted and supported by Richard Shebora and his company, FringeTek.

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