In response to high demand from program participants for both health literacy and digital skills support, the Literacy Connects English Language Acquisition for Adults program in Tucson, Arizona, created a mock patient portal (ELAA Med+) for use in their free, community-based, volunteer-taught English language and computer basics classes. Built…

Mahatma Gandhi famously said that serving others without expecting anything in return is the most meaningful approach to find one's own self. As I volunteered as an ELI (English Language Instruction) teaching assistant and learned more about the distinctive culture of the non-profit interfaith and refugee center community, this remark struck a…

Translanguaging, defined as "the deployment of a speaker's full linguistic repertoire without regard for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually national and state) languages" (Otheguy et al., 2015, p. 281), has great potential to play a key role in English as a Second Language (ESL)…

This article explores how research on the teaching of pragmatics, specifically as it relates to the use of explicit and implicit instruction, can serve as a guide for expanding the instruction of social language to immigrant students in Australia as well as other students. The curriculum and expectations from the Australian Migrant English Program…

Politics and education have always been closely entwined, but recent interactions with colleagues in the author's field about the border crisis have convinced her that these individuals are either in complete accord with the idea of large numbers of immigrants crossing the U.S. border illegally or they are completely ignorant of the situation and…

Older adults bring considerable experience and knowledge to the table, and many are already proficient in several languages, they just need to add English to their repertoire. The article describes different challenges that older English learners face and provides examples and ideas for accommodations that ESL instructors can provide to support…

Civic education provides adult English learners with the tools to be able to actively engage in their communities. This knowledge allows them to gain agency, develop a sense of belongingness, and facilitate lifelong learning. However, teaching civic education can be challenging for instructors for many reasons, such as prioritizing on developing…

German, a West Germanic language belonging to the Indo-European family, is one of the languages of culture and education in Romania. It is spoken by one of 18 recognised minorities in Romania. German has been spoken in Romania throughout history and continues to be spoken today because various German-speaking groups settled in what is now Romania…

The aim of the Regional Dossier series is to provide concise descriptions of minority languages in education, mainly in Europe but also in other parts of the world. In the Slovene Littoral, Slovene and Italian are official languages and thus they share equal status in public and private life. Learners in this region attend schools either with…

Maltese is a Semitic language closely related to Arabic in structure and morphology but is written from left to right and in the Latin script. When Malta became an independent state within the Commonwealth in 1964, the new Constitution highlighted the importance of Maltese by giving it both a national and an official status. Since 2002, Maltese…

Studies on the role of digital technology in teaching and learning English tend to focus on secondary or higher education contexts and/or with literate or educated students. The recent global pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to advance digital equity and inclusion for adult learners with limited education and literacy. Despite their basic…

I teach the beginning level English as a Second Language classes at the Don Bosco School for Adults in Kansas City, Missouri. We service refugees and immigrants from all over the world. In the beginning level classroom, many refugee students require guidance and instruction when they use writing utensils. They do not know how to draw basic shapes,…

This book examines the unique characteristics of teaching foreign languages to senior learners. It discusses the potential age-related barriers and learning difficulties which may be encountered in senior foreign language education as well as solutions to overcome these challenges. The author describes the processes of human aging from different…

As is typical across Turtle Island, the Hul'q'umi'num' (Coast Salish) language revitalization movement is being carried by adult language learners (Haynes 2010; McIvor 2015) but becoming a proficient Hul'q'umi'num' speaker is challenging given the complexity of its sound system. In this paper, we share our experiences using the speech analysis…

Like other performance-based subjects such as theater or music, pronunciation is heavily time-dependent because students need plentiful opportunities to receive input, practice skills, and get coaching and feedback from their teachers. When the Language Education and Partnerships Intensive English Program at Wright State University offered a…