College transfer students are those who follow a different trajectory in their higher education journeys than traditional students, completing a sub-degree before pursuing a bachelor's degree at a university. While the possibility of transferring makes higher education accessible to these students, previous studies have found that they face…

The RP Group's Multiple Measures Assessment Project (MMAP) produced this technical report as part of a series on how California's community colleges can ensure more English learners (ELs) successfully complete "gateway" English coursework -- courses that satisfy the English writing requirements for completion of an associate's degree as…

This study aimed at investigating the effect of two strategies of teaching reading: 'semantic mapping' and 'question generation' on the reading achievement of a sample of 40 female students enrolling in two classes in Level 2 English as a Second Language Foundation Program at the Community College of Qatar. The researcher of the current study…

Most adult English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States struggle with the basics of English literacy and reading comprehension. The lack of metacognitive awareness during reading prevents ELL students from engaging actively in the learning process. The CALLA method was used as a conceptual framework for explicit instruction. The problem…

Research has shown that first attempt performance on the TOEFL exam can have an extremely low rate of success (Esmail, 2013). The TOEFL and IELTS exams have become gatekeepers into English language institutions and society. This case study utilizes a gap analysis framework to try and understand why students have such low performance rates on such…

This study investigates the relationships between individual learner characteristics and gain in writing performance as measured by a standardized writing assessment in a sample of community college academic English as a Second Language (ESL) students in the United States. The ethnically and linguistically diverse convenience sample included 76…

The theory of learning multimodality is receiving greater attention. Its application in language learning classes is also increasing in number. Since Chinese-speaking EFL learners are likely to be visual learners, as an instructor of Taiwanese EFL students, I have come to believe that arts integrated, multimodal projects help less confident and…

Adult English as a second language (ESL) students learning English outside of traditional academic settings are an understudied population of second language learners. The purpose of the research reported here is to contribute to meeting the instructional needs of these students more effectively by investigating the relationships between their…