Adult English As A Second Language Learners Research Articles

Adult ESL Learners’ Perceptions of Participatory Teaching Methods: A Narrative Inquiry

<i>The main goal of adult English as a second language (ESL) education in the United States is to expand learners’ employment opportunities through traditional teaching methods with textbooks and fixed, pre-determined syllabi, which may or may not align with learners’ personal goals. Many studies compare different adult ESL teaching methods by language proficiency gains, but few focus exclusively on how learners feel about how they are learning English. This is particularly so for participatory education in ESL, in which learners explore relevant topics and take action to improve their lives and society at large while simultaneously learning English. This study is unique in that it examines the perspectives of advanced English learners in a participatory-based English for Professionals class in a southern U.S. city. Using narrative inquiry and action research, the study collects data from individual and focus group interviews, as well as the instructor/researcher’s field notes. The findings were grouped into four themes: the practical value of participatory classes, a comparison between traditional and participatory teaching, learners’ desired improvements to the participatory approach, and learners' perceptions of their English progress. The study shows that learners appreciate participatory learning but also have some concerns, such as the lack of traditional grammar instruction. The study discusses how the teacher-researcher addressed these concerns during a semester.</i>

Second Language Reading and Vocabulary Acquisition by Adult Learners of English

Even though vocabulary knowledge is crucial in receiving and producing meaning in a language, improving vocabulary knowledge can be challenging for both teachers and students. Exposure to the target language through meaning-focused reading can be considered one of the predictors that can address this challenge. As language learners are exposed to written language while reading, reading may help them enrich their vocabulary knowledge. Accordingly, this study investigated whether meaning-focused reading can contribute to the development of vocabulary knowledge (Breadth and Depth) among adult learners of English as a second language (ESL). Among the students of a Sri Lankan state university, a group of undergraduate students participated in the study. Measures of reading and vocabulary knowledge were administered to 189 participants as part of the research implementation. Additionally, a questionnaire was utilized to gather data on the participants' backgrounds, including their prior exposure to the target language. In a multiple regression analysis, reading significantly contributed to both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. However, it appears that reading contributes more to the breadth than to the depth of vocabulary knowledge. Thus, although meaning-focused reading can contribute to vocabulary knowledge, the contribution might vary depending on the type of vocabulary knowledge. Overall, the findings indicate that exposure to the target language through meaning-focused reading plays a significant role in enhancing vocabulary knowledge among adult ESL learners.

Moving toward equity literacy in adult ESL teaching through problematizing curriculum and centering student voices

Inspired by Gorski's (2016, 2019) framework of equity literacy and Gulliver and Thurrell's (2016, p. 57) call for more adult English as a second language (ESL) materials that feature the “uninterrupted voices” of immigrant/refugee students, this article proposes considerations for equity-minded adult ESL teachers. Specifically, the article explores opportunities to move toward equity literacy in adult ESL classes by problematizing survival ESL curriculum and centering voices of immigrant and refugee adult ESL learners. Written by a full-time high school teacher and volunteer adult ESL teacher, the author offers other teachers frameworks for promoting equity literacy by critically examining curricular materials and critically centering student experiences.

Situational Problems as a Major Factor of Inadequacy of Speaking Competency in Sri Lankan Adult ESL Learners

The main objective of the current study was to explore the impact of situational problems i.e. poor input, low topical knowledge, lack of time for practice, lack of opportunities to practice, the inability to make constructions, and low feedback on adult English as a second language (ESL) learners in learning speaking skills at a government monitored institute of higher education. The current research was prompted by a major research done previously in the same local context on problems faced by ESL learners in learning speaking skills which revealed that cognitive and psychological problems are made worse by situational problems. This qualitative exploratory study was done with 50 adult ESL learners following the higher national diploma in English HNDE at this institute. Open questionnaires and interviews were used as the data gathering instrument of the study that followed the grounded theory. A triangulation of questionnaire data and transcripts of interview data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings confirm the existence of situational problems in the particular context and disclose the lack of time and space given to the subject speaking skills in the curriculum following unwise revisions brought to it. The main cause of students’ low speaking competence is sadly bad teaching.

“I Need Child Care!”: Using Funds of Knowledge, Addressing Challenges, and Developing Literacies With a Classroom Community of Adult ESL Learners

Many immigrants and refugees in the United States must confront different linguistic and cultural contexts in their everyday life. As part of a larger ethnographic study related to refugee families and literacy, this qualitative study explores how adult English as a second language (ESL) students help their classmate Htoo Eh find ways to deal with an everyday life challenge. This study utilized two supporting theoretical frameworks: funds of knowledge and literacy as a social practice. Data sources included field notes, transcripts of video recording, artifacts, as well as conservations with the teacher and welfare coordinators. Findings demonstrate that community members utilized two funds of knowledge in particular: social network and life experience to help the focal participant. Findings also showed that adult ESL students assisted their classmates in developing three types of literacies, which were finding and obtaining childcare, knowing how the system works, and communicating with the caseworker in order to deal with an everyday life challenge. These findings suggest that educators should recognize and value adult ESL learners’ funds of knowledge as well as incorporate the knowledge into instruction. Educators also should open up space for these learners to develop literacies together as a community.

Supporting Immigrant Families and Rural Schools: The Boundary-Spanning Possibilities of an Adult ESL Program

Purpose: There has been a significant increase in the number of immigrant families moving to rural communities across the United States. Yet limited research exists that explores relationships between immigrant families and schools in these communities. Rural school districts are often challenged by insufficient resources, expertise, and infrastructure to respond. Adult English as a second language (ESL) programs can be valuable partners. This article explores how instructors in a regional adult ESL program supported relationships between immigrant families and schools in a rural Virginia school district. Research Methods: A case study was conducted between 2014 and 2015. Data collection included observations of adult ESL classes; semistructured interviews with adult ESL instructors, parents of school-age children, and school district leaders and teachers; open-ended questions on a parent survey; and documents. Findings: Four interrelated practices of the adult ESL instructors facilitated understanding and communication between immigrant families and K-12 educators. Adult ESL instructors disseminated information, explained cultural norms and expectations, coached family-school interactions, and created opportunities to connect families and educators. Supporting conditions included characteristics of the adult ESL classes, district leadership and sense of urgency, and multilayered relationships of professionals and actions of the adult ESL coordinator. Implications for Practice: Given the right conditions, adult ESL programs can be valuable partners for rural education leaders seeking to strengthen engagement with immigrant families. These programs can facilitate linkages between schools and adult ESL learners who are parents or caregivers and can be a professional development resource for building district capacity to engage with immigrant families.

Cross-modality interference effects of phonetic and prosodic information in second language learners

Successful communication relies on efficient use of information from multiple modalities and dimensions. Our previous research using a cross-modal priming paradigm showed that congruent visual primes facilitate faster recognition of phonetic and emotional prosodic information in speech. Event-related potential (ERP) data further revealed distinct brain mechanisms in the N400 and late positive response (LPR) components for processing linguistic and paralinguistic congruency. The current study extended the same paradigm to English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners to examine possible interference between the two informational dimensions as a function of language experience. Participants were sixteen normal adult ESL learners. Monosyllables /bab/ and /bib/ in a happy or angry tone were used as the auditory stimuli, and pictures of the speaker articulating vowel /a/ and /i/ with a happy or angry facial expression were used as the visual primes. Compared to native English speakers, ESL learners showed significantly longer reaction time with inconsistent congruency effects in both conditions. But their behavioral accuracy data mirrored those of the native speakers, and native-like N400 and LPR components were also reliably elicited in the ESL group in both conditions. Together, these results indicate stronger cross-modal interference between phonetic and emotional prosodic information in speech for second language learners.

Prototype effects in first and second language learners: The case of English transitive semantics

According to usage-based approaches to language acquisition, linguistic constructions should display prototype effects, or graded category membership (e.g., Bybee, 2010). Using the prototype-plus-distortion methodology (Franks & Bransford, 1971), Ibbotson, Theakston, Lieven, and Tomasello (2012) have provided evidence for prototype effects in adult native English speakers, who had false-positive recognition of sentences with prototypical transitive semantics as having been previously encountered after being exposed to non-prototypical transitive semantics. In the current study, I adopted this methodology and investigated whether the effects can be replicated and additionally observed from English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners. Results from two groups of adult native English speakers (N=20 and N=21), each exposed to a different stimuli set, suggested some, but not strong, effects and revealed the complexity of the use of this methodology with linguistic materials. Moreover, no effects were observed from advanced adult ESL learners (N=22), suggesting possible differences between first and second transitive semantic representations.

USING ELECTRONIC READERS: ACTION RESEARCH IN AN INTERMEDIATE ADULT ESL CLASS

The use of portable electronic reading devices in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom has the potential to positively impact learners’ reading engagement and language skill development. However, due to the lack of research, few guidelines are available to inform instructors of the benefits and challenges of using these devices in ESL classes. Therefore, the key objective of this action research project was to explore 21 intermediate adult ESL learners’ experiences using e-readers in an extensive e-reading program. Results indicated that the use of e-readers increased the learners’ volume and frequency of reading and enhanced their reading enjoyment when compared with their reading of paper books.

Content-Learning Tasks for Adult ESL Learners: Promoting Literacy for Work or School

Teachers of English as a second language (ESL) are often on the frontline of working with adult ESL learners who are facing a difficult developmental pathway to academic and/or economic success. These learners come to the task of learning English with widely varying schooling experiences, degrees of first language literacy, and English language proficiency. A workplace that increasingly demands considerable content knowledge, critical thinking abilities, and excellent communication skills has led to a greater emphasis on academic skill development from the earliest stages of literacy and language learning, and has highlighted a need for continuing this emphasis for those transitioning into vocational or academic studies. A known but not often implemented approach to adult ESL learning, content-based instruction, is a viable response to this situation. Content other than language is common in ESL materials, but making learners accountable for actually learning this content is often secondary to language skill development, if considered at all. However, learning the content naturally motivates deep processing of language and the use of higher order thinking skills, which are foundational for high levels of literacy. This article provides teachers of adult ESL learners, vocationally or academically oriented, with the rationale, guiding principles, and examples of that focus on content learning through text-engaging tasks.

Do adult ESL learners’ and their teachers’ goals for improving grammar in writing correspond?

Recent research has identified certain goals of adult second language (L2) learners and their teachers for writing instruction in English as a second language (ESL), yet questions remain as to whether students’ and teachers’ goals correspond in ways that achieve instructional objectives and facilitate L2 development. The present study compared L2 students’ goals for grammar improvement in academic writing with those of their teachers as students transitioned from an intensive ESL programme to university courses. Over a two-year period, we conducted 60 semi-structured interviews and stimulated recalls with 15 ESL university students along with 25 interview and stimulated recall sessions with 5 ESL and 9 university instructors. Results showed limited correspondence between learners’ and teachers’ intentions for grammar improvement. Learners expressed a strong preference for improving formal grammatical features, particularly verb tenses and clause structure, whereas instructors either reported that they had no goals for grammar improvement or sought to improve grammatical complexity and the stylistic appropriateness of text features. However, learners had little knowledge and awareness of these areas.

The Acquisition of English be Auxiliary and Thematic Verb Constructions by Adult Arab ESL Learners

This study investigates the acquisition of English be auxiliary and thematic verb constructions in non-past contexts by adult Arab learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). It is well known that second language (L2) learners show variability in the L2 production of verbal inflectional morphology by either omitting inflections or marking inappropriate substitution of one kind of inflection for another. The Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH) (Prévost and White, 2000) proposes that L2 learners have knowledge of functional categories and features underlying tense and agreement although sometimes they fail to produce the corresponding overt forms. In order to examine the nature of the adult Arab ESL learners’ interlanguage (IL) grammar at the L2 ultimate attainment level as well as the extent to which the learners can acquire English be auxiliary and thematic verb constructions in non-past contexts, an oral production task (ORPT) was conducted with 77 adult Arab ESL learners subdivided into three proficiency levels (lower-intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced). An analysis of the ORPT show that the L2 learners omit and wrongly use the be auxiliary verbal inflection (am, is, are) more frequently than the thematic verb inflection (-s) in their production. The results reveal that the adult Arab ESL learners, even at ultimate attainment level, are more sensitive to the thematic verb contractions than to the be auxiliary constructions. These results suggest that variability in the production of verbal inflectional morphology is due to problems with the realization of surface morphology in accordance with the MSIH.

The Power of Story in the ESL Classroom

Although considerable research has examined the use of literature in the second language (L2) classroom, there has been less investigation into the integration of learners' personal stories in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom. Following Wajnryb's (2003) categorizations of story as language learning, genre, and the creation of what she termed a ‘storied classroom,’ this study explores the ways in which learners' stories are used in the ESL classroom. Five ESL instructors and nine adult ESL learners enrolled in ESL classes at a settlement agency in Edmonton were interviewed about the practice, benefits, and challenges of incorporating personal stories into the L2 classroom. Participants perceived that story promoted language learning, an understanding of genre, and community building, while also enhancing authenticity, affect, and motivation. This article provides guidelines and recommends resources for using personal story in the adult ESL classroom.

A design study of a multimedia instructional grammar program with embedded tracking

This is a design study meant to demonstrate the feasibility of integrating three rather different theoretical perspectives for future efforts in multimedia instructional design. A multimedia instructional grammar program contextualized within the teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL) was developed and evaluated. The program design was grounded in Mayer’s multimedia learning theory (2001), Sweller’s cognitive load theory (CLT, 2005), and cognitive training theory using an inductive reasoning paradigm (Klauer and Phye, Rev Educ Res 78(1):85–124, 2008). A successful integration of cognitive training theory into program design is expected to facilitate the transition of student’s declarative knowledge of a grammar concept of passive voice to procedural knowledge (Phye, Contemp Educ Psychol 16:87–94, 1991; Phye et al., Empirical methods for evaluating educational interventions, Academic Press/Elsevier, San Diego, 2005). Two studies involving ten and four adult ESL learners were conducted in a Midwest community college. Grammar teaching occurred within the context of history and geography of the USA. Students with low prior knowledge of passive voice grammar concepts, intermediate level of general vocabulary, and adequate basic knowledge of content (basic geography and history) benefited most from the program. Preliminary results are encouraging for the aforementioned integrative efforts.

The Role of Task‐Induced Involvement and Learner Proficiency in L2 Vocabulary Acquisition

Hulstijn and Laufer (2001) proposed a motivational‐cognitive construct of task‐induced involvement to account for variation in effectiveness among different vocabulary learning tasks. Building upon their original research, this study consisted of two experiments investigating the involvement load hypothesis in vocabulary learning. Experiment 1 compared the performance of 64 adult English as a second language (ESL) learners from a range of countries at two different proficiency levels (i.e., matriculated undergraduate students vs. students in an Intensive English Program) to ascertain the effectiveness of three vocabulary tasks with different levels of task‐induced involvement. Experiment 2 investigated whether two tasks hypothesized to represent the same level of task‐induced involvement would result in equivalent initial learning and retention of target words by 20 adult ESL learners at two different levels of proficiency. The results of Experiment 1 showed that a higher level of learner involvement during the task promoted more effective initial vocabulary learning and better retention of the new words. The findings of Experiment 2 indicated that when different tasks had the same involvement load, they resulted in similar amounts of initial vocabulary learning and retention of new words. The results of the two experiments are discussed in light of the involvement load hypothesis.

Second-Language Acquisition, Culture Shock, and Language Stress of Adult Female Latina Students in New York

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the educational, cultural, and linguistic adjustments and experiences encountered by Hispanic adult females in learning English as a second language (ESL) and the relation of these experiences to the variables of language, culture, and education of adult Hispanic females. Adult ESL learners face problems of controlling linguistic rules and of applications in various situations while attempting to deal with the shock of living in a new cultural environment.

Assessing the Roles of Depth and Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge in Reading Comprehension

This empirical study explored the relationships between depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in English as a second language (ESL). Using multivariate analyses, the study examined the roles of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in assessing the performance of a group of young adult ESL learners with a minimum vocabulary size of 3,000 word families in carrying out general academic reading comprehension tasks. The results support the hypotheses that (1) scores on vocabulary size, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension are highly, and positively, correlated; and (2) scores on depth of vocabulary knowledge can make a unique contribution to the prediction of reading comprehension levels, in addition to the prediction afforded by vocabulary size scores. The findings from this study call for a recognition of the importance of improving depth of vocabulary knowledge in learners' ESL learning processes.

Main Verb Versus Reduced Relative Clause Ambiguity Resolution in L2 Sentence Processing

This study investigated how adult learners of English as a second language (ESL) process sentences containing verbs that are temporarily ambiguous in interpretation between a main verb and a reduced relative clause. Seventeen Chinese, 17 Korean or Japanese, and 17 Romance learners with advanced ESL proficiency and a comparison group of 17 monolingual native speakers (NSs) of English provided word‐by‐word reading times for 6 sentence types. The evidence showed that they used both verb subcategorization information and post‐ambiguity cues to resolve main verb/reduced relative clause ambiguity. The data also indicated that bad post‐ambiguity cues misled some ESL users more than others, differences that can be attributed to their first languages (L1s). These results suggest that (a) like native speakers, ESL speakers are sensitive to the complex interaction of information sources when parsing a sentence; (b) adult ESL learners are influenced by typological properties of their L1s that are linked to L1 parsing strategies when processing ESL.

Effects of training in rapid decoding on the reading comprehension of adult ESL learners

We report an experimental investigation of the effects on comprehension of increasing the decoding speed of three adult learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Participants were taught to read lists of 25 difficult words in isolation until they could read the entire list at a mean rate of not more than 1.5 secs per word. They were then asked to read passages containing these words. Decoding speed and accuracy measures, for both the word lists and passages, and passage comprehension measures, were obtained. In a temporally contiguous within-subjects repeated trials reversal design, decoding training on isolated words was shown to be associated with significant increases in decoding speed and accuracy both in isolation and context, and improvements in the participants' comprehension. With all participants rate and accuracy gains in context were maintained in the final reversal phase, though the comprehension score gains did not. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for a decoding sufficiency hypothesis.

Listening and Language Learning in ESL: Developing Self-Study Activities for Listening Comprehension

An examination of materials development for independent study in listening comprehension of English as a second language (ESL) begins with an outline of current directions in second language instruction. The discussion that follows has two parts. The first is a review of some changing perspectives on the role of listening in language learning and teaching, including historical notes, the distinctions emerging in the field during the 1970's, and the 1980's' emerging focus on the importance of listening. Part two presents guidelines for developing materials and examples of special listening activities designed for a segment of a self-study aural comprehension curriculum. The materials are intended for adult and teenage ESL learners at elementary and intermediate levels, and are designed to focus intensive attention on selected listening tasks in two broad categories. One is functional listening and vocabulary building, with an emphasis on understanding message content and intent in building vocabulary. This category is further divided into notional/informational listening and situational/functional/informational listening. The second category of tasks is structural analysis listening, with an emphasis on analyzing sound patterns, spelling patterns, and some grammatical elements. This category is subdivided into discrimination-oriented listening practice and sound-spelling listening practice. A bibliography is included. (MSE) LISTENING AND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN ESL: Developing Self-Study Activities for Listening Comprehension Practice