Help create a Billion Literates!

Building Foundational Literacy & Bridging Learning Gaps

At OBLF, we've always believed that combining a learner-focused curriculum with a strong emphasis on teacher development would make a real difference—and now we have the proof. Our students have shown a remarkable 16.5% improvement in proficiency, a testament to the hard work of our teachers and the effectiveness of our approach. By integrating technology, like tablets and gamified content, into the classroom, we've seen an even more significant leap, with learning accelerating by 28.5%. The data shows clear progress in language skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—as our students advance through the Cambridge proficiency levels.

We're committed to continuing our investment in both our teachers and our curriculum because it's clear that these elements are crucial to our success. The journey from baseline to endline tells a compelling story: starting with an average score of 47%, our students grew to 55% by the end of the 2022-2023 academic year. This 16.5% improvement is particularly striking in listening and speaking skills, a result of focusing on foundational levels and incorporating Phonics into our curriculum.

Our Approach
Our approach is simple yet powerful. When students engage with OBLF's CEFR-based curriculum and teaching methods, they consistently outperform peers in non-OBLF schools. This isn’t just our observation; an independent study confirmed it. The study, conducted by a social research organization with no ties to OBLF, compared students in OBLF partner schools to those in schools without our intervention. The results were clear: students in our program scored nearly 50% higher on average.

The study highlighted that as students spend more time in the program, their performance continues to improve. They excel in all areas of English, but the differences are most noticeable in the challenging skills of writing and speaking.

The Takeaway
This study reinforces what we’ve always believed:

1. Students in OBLF partner schools achieve much higher English proficiency than those in non-OBLF schools.
2. The longer a student stays with us, the more their language skills grow, widening the gap between them and their peers in other schools.
3. Our focused effort on speaking and writing has paid off, with these skills showing the most significant improvement.

These findings affirm the importance of our ongoing commitment to enhancing both teaching quality and curriculum design. Three years ago, we made a strategic shift to the CEFR methodology, and these results show that it was the right move for our students' futures.

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