This issue of "Linkages" addresses the need for adult literacy programs to go beyond teaching basic academic skills to adults with learning disabilities to teaching skills in goal setting, problem solving, and self-advocacy that will assist adult learners in their transition into the workforce. Articles include: "Transition: Adult Literacy and…

The growth of adult higher education programs is in direct response to the demand in the marketplace for adult higher education. It is possible to deliver a high quality educational program in a nontraditional delivery format for the adult learner and to identify high quality educational programs in the marketplace. High quality adult educational…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a personal growth support group on the personal effectiveness (or "self-efficacy") of a small group of returning female community college students. Those who participated in the study were women over the age of 25 who were attending college for the first time or were returning to college…

As a response to the problem of adult-student retention at two-year and four-year urban colleges, a new structural model, "Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy, Perceived Stress, and an Integrated Model of Student Persistence" (Sandler, 1999), has been identified to better explain the integration, finances, behavior, and career development of…

Three presentations are provided from Symposium 38, Advances in Distance Learning, of the Academy of Human Resource Development 2000 Conference Proceedings. "Teaching Strategies in a Synchronous Learning Environment for Adult Students" (Luis A. C. Lima, Kathryn S. Hoff) reports the responses of intact cohort groups enrolled in spring semester 1999…

Adults who desire to increase their education need to find courses and programs that meet their needs, time schedules, and financial means. Increasingly, courses for adults will be conducted on the World Wide Web. Many colleges are conducting courses on the Web, and many adults are discovering that, after trying such a course, they actually like…

Based on research with literacy learners, instructors, and practicing therapists, this book re-examines learning through a lens focused on the prevalence of and effects of violence in women's lives. Section 1, "Canaries in the Mine," highlights a shift away from seeing those who have experienced violence as damaged and towards…

This report analyzes the Piedmont Works Adult Education Program (PW) at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) and compares PW students with regular students at the college. PW offers aid to students to attend PVCC. Those students follow the same scheduling and enrollment procedures as other PVCC students. The PW program helps fund educational…

In the early 1960s, European adult educators developed a new theoretical model of adult learning called "andragogy." In 1968, Malcolm Knowles introduced the concept of andragogy into U.S. adult education literature and identified four primary assumptions about adult learners: adults become increasingly independent and self-directing;…

The Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) is a national non-profit organization representing literacy coalitions, organizations and individuals from every province and territory. Since 1978 MCL has worked to: (1) inform the federal government and the general public about issues related to adult literacy in Canada; (2) provide a national forum for…

Broad agreement exists in the society about the desirability of U.S. residents speaking English. Policymakers, community and civic leaders, and social scientists--and especially non-English speakers themselves--agree that knowledge of English is the gateway to full participation in U.S. society and its many rewards. Yet learning a language is…

This program was developed and implemented to increase adult ESOL students' chances to participate in conversations with each other, thereby increasing both their fluency and their confidence. Additionally, a target group with both low language levels and low confidence was separated from the higher achievers in order to decrease their…

This compilation of 12 papers covers lesson planning; classroom use of dialogs, drills, audiovisual aids, music, games, stories, newspapers, field trips; and testing in the adult ESL classroom. (EKN)

Three oral testing methods (imitation, completion, and interview) were compared for reliability and validity with 143 adult Egyptian learners of English. Five components (raw score, fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and combined fluency-pronunciation-grammar) were analyzed for each method. Imitation showed the highest validity, with interview and…

David Breneman's "The Coming Enrollment Crisis: What Every Trustee Must Know" is discussed by Wharton, L. Edward Allemand, Barbara S. Uehling, Irving J. Spitzberg, Jr., Oscar E. Remick, Thomas V. Litzenburg, Jr., and John W. Pocock. Implications for reversals of social and political policy, student retention, developing compensatory…