Discusses the notion of "language needs" and suggests some learning activities designed to make second language learners aware of why they are studying the language while they are learning it. (AM)

The activities by colleges and universities directed toward adults and characteristics of the adult learner are charted. The graying of the campus population, the attendance status of the adult learner, the characteristics of the adult degree-credit student, and noncredit activities are discussed. (MLW)

Allegorizes higher education as a superhighway, urging the redesign of the structure of higher education to meet the challenge of student diversity in the classroom. Examines trends in providing educational alternatives and suggests offering a program of services that will permit students to take responsibility for their lifelong learning. (JM)

Favors community college recognition of the diversity of potential college students. Argues for research into the major areas and stages of adult development through analysis of individual ego, moral, and intellectual differences in relation to individual orientations toward knowledge, educational practices, and programmatic alternatives. (CM)

A variety of external degree programs and the unique characteristics of administration are discussed. (JMF)

External degree programs present problems to the coordination of higher education in the states. It should be the function of recognized accreditation agencies and the institutions to assure quality programs. Only as a last resort should the states step in to coordinate. (JMF)

Issues related to the establishment and operation of women's centers in institutions of postsecondary education are examined. The focus of this literature review is the mature, returning female student. (JKS)

Discusses in detail a technique, called LES (Listen, Enumerate, and Start), for developing the listening skills of adult ESL (English as a Second Language) students. Students listen to an utterance and then answer questions such as the number of words in a particular sentence, the number of unknown words, etc. (CFM)

This article discusses the content of a conversation course designed for adult students of English as a Second Language at an advanced level in which the emplasis is on pronunciation and fluency. Correct stress and intonation must be taught as well as new vocabulary and idioms. (CFM)

The consensus of opinion seems to be that the processes of mother tongue acquisition are essentially analogous to those of second language (SL) acquisition. These processes, however, seem to work best in childhood years. A theory of adult SL learning should try to incorporate interlanguage. (CFM)

One faculty member's selective, subjective, and partial perceptions of counselling adult students in the Open University are offered. Consideration is given to problems of the counselee, skills, role conflicts, motivation, emotional adjustment, identity and personal development, and implications for the advisory service. (LBH)

Explores the importance of dialog for education and for educational facilitation. The facilitation process is framed on person-to-person dialog that produces an encounter with the experiences and ideas of the student, but dialog in a larger sense is apparent in the operation of the colloquium at Boricua College, New York (New York). (SLD)

Investigates the role of language in adult numeracy classrooms, utilizing the resources of systemic functional linguistics and constructs derived from conversational analysis and ethnomethodology to examine how these classrooms are constructed in discourse. The study characterizes these classrooms as mixed-mode discourse sites and examines how…

Sixteen external-degree adult students were interviewed during their first year of study to examine the nature of academic self-concept in distance education. It was determined that academic self-concept was related to both the process and the content of learning and that modifications in educational practices can potentially enhance learners'…

Explores alternative arrangements for adult access to higher education in England and Wales, France, and Germany, and examines the impact of such arrangements on the relationship between the state and higher education. Draws on Weiler's theory of compensatory legitimation to explain why the noise about such policy innovations is louder than the…