This article is the culmination of the Cultural and Linguistic Autobiography (CLA) writing project, which details narrative descriptions of adult English language learners' (ELLs') cultural and linguistic experiences and how those experiences may have influenced the ways in which these learners constructed and reconstructed their identities.…

Adult second-language (L2) learners' perception of L2 phonetic segments is influenced by first-language phonological and phonetic properties. It was recently proposed that L2 vocabulary size in adult learners is related to changes in L2 perception (perceptual assimilation model), analogous to the emergence of first-language phonological function…

Today, more than any other time in history, student demographics of college and university students in the United States are experiencing rapid and profound changes. Along with these increases in nontraditional student enrollment comes an increasing percentage of working nontraditional college students with a multitude of commitments that serve to…

Dyslexia is a well-known phenomenon and help and assistance are offered to pupils and students who experience literacy difficulties on a regular basis. But what help do they need and want? In this article the responses people with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia give to this question are discussed. What, if we take the student's own…

Many language training software packages are intended for self-study and marketed as complete language learning solutions; however, little is known about how well they work or under what conditions they should be used. This article reports on a research study conducted at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language that…

Adult learners are already involved in the process of self-regulation; hence, higher education institutions should focus on strengthening students' self-regulatory skills. Self-regulation can be facilitated through formative assessment. This paper proposes a model formative assessment strategy that would complement existing university teaching,…

Since its inception, the Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS) has focused on teaching and assessing basic skills in contexts that are relevant and important to adult learners. CASAS has developed and continues to refine a highly formalized hierarchy of competencies, the application of basic skills that adults need to be fully…

This reflective paper discusses aspects of the author's personal development as an adult learner. Though that development is reflected in her practice as an adult educator, she does not explore those implications in the paper. Instead, she grapples with what it means to make meaning, to determine how she knows what she thinks she knows. The author…

Being an international English as a Second Language (ESL) graduate student from China studying in the U.S., the author has undergone various types of transformation. Taking her first online course is one poignant example in which multiple layers of transformation occurred. In hopes of easing the transformation of other international ESL students…

This article presents a narrative account of the author's experience of working with teacher educators in Lesotho, Africa. It describes research projects developed in conjunction with the author's counterparts in Lesotho. Although the research project work is yet in its infancy, the author reflects on insights gained from working as an Irish…

The paper illustrates grammar as a meaning-making resource for early intermediate to advanced adult learners. It focuses on the environment of clause complexing, where different functions, such as Subject and Theme, are unified to construct a rhetorically oriented language logic. The paper suggests that learners' awareness of this logic offers a…

This paper examines the results of research into the learning experiences of a group of adult learners in a university preparation programme in a college of Technical and Further Education in Sydney, NSW, Australia. The research was conducted over a three year period by the author as a teacher-researcher and is grounded in the phenomenological…

The rise of reliance on adjunct professors as a predominate source of direct instruction has led to a shift in the opportunities for the student to interact with their teachers. Student expectations have shifted to include a demand of more interaction at times outside of the classroom. The proliferation of modern technology available for…

This study sought to shed light on the relationship between support (from teachers and peers) and foreign-language learners' anxiety. A total of 158 adult Taiwanese English-language learners completed three questionnaires: a background questionnaire, the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, and the Classroom Life Measure. The results showed…

This study focused on adult learners' age, race, gender, and whether they graduated from a distant-learning, master in the art of teaching program at an accredited college during the three academic semesters that comprised the 2007-2008 school year. The dependent variable used in this study consisted of whether adult learners graduated from a…