It’s your teacher’s responsibility to structure the classes for your language growth.  Your teacher will use research-based strategies in the classroom, so that instruction is efficient and effective.  We will work with interesting material in your Zone of Proximal Development.  As your language skills develop, we will help you choose texts that focus on your personal learning goals.  We will squeeze every drop of learning out of the textbooks you buy!

Institute ACE teaches integrated skills.  We do not divide our program into reading, writing, speaking and listening classes.  Instead we teach all of the skills together- just like we use them in real life! 

We might write before we listen to a lecture, then write again afterwards.  We may assign homework so you can learn even more in class the next day. 

Sometimes we read a text, then talk about it, then respond in writing.  Other times, we memorize a grammar pattern or selected vocabulary. And sometimes we just talk and talk and talk, working through a question or telling a story.

It is your responsibility to prepare for class, attend class, and participate in class.  If you miss a lot of class, you will not be prepared for your exams.  If you play on your phone in class, you will not be prepared for your exams.  If you don’t do your homework, you will not be prepared for your exams.  “Cramming” is not very effective for our exams.  Preparing for class, attending class and participating in class are very effective strategies for success on our assessments.

Every day, in every class, in every activity, your teachers are helping your language skills grow.  Every day, in every class, in every activity, you are preparing for the assessments.

When you start at ACE, we give you a syllabus for your level and a Record of Mastery to track your learning.  The syllabus explains what you can expect to learn in that level.  It also explains how you will be tested. The Record of Mastery documents your learning success.

When you show mastery of all the level learning outcomes (all levels) and show general improvement on the Michigan EPT (Intermediate English and Advanced English only), you will be promoted to the next level.

Throughout the term, your teachers use formative assessment to guide instruction.  This means your teacher is constantly monitoring how much the class understands and doesn’t understand. If she sees that something is very confusing, she or he will provide more explanation and practice.   Formative assessment is not graded, and includes classwork, conversations about classwork, homework, quizzes, and more.

Summative assessment measures your mastery of the skills you study at ACE. Your performance on summative assessments is documented on your Record of Mastery.