The United States government is perennially in need of employees with proficiency in critical foreign languages to communicate with foreign counterparts and maintain relationships worldwide. In order to fulfill this need, the government devotes significant resources training federal employees to advanced levels of language proficiency through…

This study aimed to examine the relationship between student engagement and student retention of adult learners at community colleges. The relationship between student retention and the five Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) student engagement benchmarks (active and collaborative learning, student effort, academic challenge,…

We explore how the communication concerns of non-native English speakers (NNS) and Americans relate to their perceptions of each other and decisions to interact. NNS identified their concerns in communicating with Americans, the perceived causes of their concerns, and the strategies they would employ to address these concerns. Americans noted…

Knowledge of the target specialized language should be of use to English for specific purposes teachers who teach pronunciation. Knowledge of the target learners' first language (L1) should also be useful when these teachers use contrastive analysis, error analysis or interlanguage theory. However, as far as teaching the pronunciation of the…

The adoption of e-books in the classroom has been a topic of research from different perspectives. While some studies documented the implementation of digital textbooks in K-12 and higher education classrooms, there was no evidence of research related to the introduction and use of e-books in the adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom.…

This study investigated whether task complexity may affect L2 speaking performance as predicted by the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2011), and whether the effect of task complexity may interact with individual differences in working memory capacity. A total of twenty Korean advanced-level EFL learners performed two separate picture description…

When acquiring information from a 2D platform, self-control and/or optimal pacing may help reduce cognitive load and enhance learning outcomes. In the present research, adults viewed novel action sequences via one of four learning media: (1) self-paced slideshows, where viewers advanced through slides at their own pace by clicking a mouse, (2)…

This study explores L2 learners' awareness of meaning of L2 conventional expressions and the effect of form-meaning associations on the use of the expressions in L2 pragmatics. Definitions and examples were elicited through an aural Vocabulary Knowledge Scale modified for expressions. Elicited definitions were used to explore the meanings that…

Recent literature in second language (L2) perceived fluency has focused on English as a second language, with a primary reliance on impressions from native-speaker judges, leaving learners' self-perceptions of speech production unexplored. This study investigates the relationship between learners' and judges' perceptions of French fluency under…

The objective of this article is to investigate meaning and relevance in the context of adult developmental math learning and instruction. In this case study, at the Art Institute of San Francisco, 12 vocational instructors and four math learners are interviewed on their early and current math experiences. During the semi-structured interviews,…

The purpose of this Executive Position Paper (EPP) is to develop a model for improving the online training modules utilized by a mid-Atlantic Residence Life department. The complexity of the Residence Life staff positions, coupled with demands from other university departments and the need to provide as much information as possible, resulted in an…

This research examined the impact of formative quizzes on e-learning designed to teach volunteers how to tutor struggling readers. Three research questions were addressed: (1) Do embedded quizzes facilitate learning of e-content? (2) Does the announcement of upcoming quizzes affect learning? (3) Does prior knowledge interact with quizzing and…