Second Language Educational Experiences for Adult Learners explains the latest research on adult learning and then applies that work to specifically address second language learning. In the foundational chapters, this book introduces some of the differences between language learning for adults. In the second half of the volume, the authors move to consider educational design in chapters on curriculum, materials, assessment, and technology. This is an essential book for researchers and students interested in the science of language learning or anyone looking to better understand the science of adult education.
Second Language Educational Experiences for Adult Learners provides an up-to-date review of the theory and practice of adult second language education. The primary objective is to introduce core ideas that should inform the design, development, and delivery of language learning experiences that take the typical forms of materials, courses, teaching, and assessment. Divided into three sections, the book first addresses what we know about adult second language acquisition and how individuals may acquire languages differently from each other. In the second section, key educational design elements—from pedagogical methods to curriculum to assessment—are then introduced from the perspective of research-based understandings about effective practices. Rounding out the volume is an overview of critical issues for language educational innovation, including supporting teachers, localizing materials and instruction, evaluating and improving education, and working with technology. Each chapter concludes with a set of recommended “design principles” that should guide readers toward high-quality, valuable, and empirically supported language educational experiences. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students investigating instructed language learning, designers creating useful language learning materials, and language teaching innovators seeking to improve outcomes in diverse instructional settings around the world.
The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 72 in this preeminent series, features empirical and theoretical contributions in cognitive and experimental psychology, ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning, to complex learning and problem-solving. Chapters in this new release cover Statistical learning predicts literacy acquisition of a foreign alphabetic and logographic language, An Investigation into Virtual Immersion Mandarin Chinese Writing Instruction with Students with Autism, Child and adult classroom L2 learners: uniqueness and similarities, and implications for cognitive models, Current Trends in Second Sign Language Research: Acquisition, Teaching and Assessment, Language Experiences and Cognitive Control: A Dynamic Perspective, and much more.
Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning: evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children. An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign lanugage by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.
This book offers a new and promising way to support adults in Adult Basic Education (ABE) and English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) programs specifically, and learners in adult education, in general. Applying renowned Harvard University psychologist Robert Kegan's constructive-development theory, Drago-Severson depicts an in-depth investigation into how and why adults develop "ways of knowing" to better prepare them for their work in the 21st century. This book provides practical suggestions for applying Kegan's theory in adult education classrooms to enable teachers, curriculum developers, program designers, and policymakers to better respond to adult learners' strengths and learning needs.
This book brings together the voices of teacher educators working in different national and educational settings. It Covers themes such as change in teacher education practices, the influences of context on practice, and of interculturality, to provide rich insights into the processes and effects of second language teacher education.
This Handbook, with 45 chapters written by the world’s leading scholars in second language acquisition (SLA) and language testing, dives into the important interface between SLA and language testing: shared ground where researchers seek to measure second language performance to better understand how people learn their second languages. The Handbook also reviews how to best measure and evaluate the second language (L2) learners’ personal characteristics, backgrounds, and learning contexts to better understand their L2 learning trajectories. Taking a transdisciplinary approach to research, the book builds upon recent theorizing and measurement principles from the fields of applied linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, psycholinguistics, psychometrics, educational measurement, and social psychology. The Handbook is divided into six key sections: (1) Assessment concepts for SLA researchers, (2) Building instruments for SLA research, (3) Measuring individual differences, (4) Measuring language development, (5) Testing specific populations, and (6) Measurement principles for SLA researchers.
How do you tailor education to the learning needs of adults? Do they learn differently from children? How does their life experience inform their learning processes? These were the questions at the heart of Malcolm Knowles’ pioneering theory of andragogy which transformed education theory in the 1970s. The resulting principles of a self-directed, experiential, problem-centred approach to learning have been hugely influential and are still the basis of the learning practices we use today. Understanding these principles is the cornerstone of increasing motivation and enabling adult learners to achieve. The 9th edition of The Adult Learner has been revised to include: Updates to the book to reflect the very latest advancements in the field. The addition of two new chapters on diversity and inclusion in adult learning, and andragogy and the online adult learner. An updated supporting website. This website for the 9th edition of The Adult Learner will provide basic instructor aids including a PowerPoint presentation for each chapter. Revisions throughout to make it more readable and relevant to your practices. If you are a researcher, practitioner, or student in education, an adult learning practitioner, training manager, or involved in human resource development, this is the definitive book in adult learning you should not be without.
The aim of the thesis is to explore what being and becoming a teacher of Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults (LESLLA) mean. The study, which applies situated learning theory combined with some Bourdieuan concepts as thinking tools, seeks to depict how the professional identity of LESLLA teachers can be understood from their memberships in different communities of practice. The empirical study is based on observational data and on semi-structured interviews, which have been analysed thematically. The results show that the LESLLA teachers construct professional identity in regard to the particular nature of the learners, i.e. that the learners are simultaneously adult emergent readers and second language learners establishing themselves in a new society. This is, for example, seen in the teachers’ teaching actions and in how they respond to learning opportunities and changes. Likewise, the results illustrate that becoming a LESLLA teacher is an ongoing process in which some periods are particularly critical for learning. It takes place in a number of different communities of which the teaching practices are the most crucial. When it comes to the other communities to which the teachers belong, their significance differs from teacher to teacher. Moreover, power plays a central role in the identity formation. Societal forces, and the position and trajectory of the teacher in different communities in the landscapes of LESLLA teaching and Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) contribute to it. Syftet med den här avhandlingen är att utforska vad det innebär att vara och bli lärare för kortutbildade vuxna inom svenska som andraspråksutbildning. Med hjälp av situerat lärande som övergripande teoretiskt perspektiv, och några av Bourdieus begrepp som kompletterande tankeverktyg, analyseras hur den professionella identiteten för den här lärargruppen kan förstås utifrån deras medlemskap i olika professionella praktikgemenskaper. Denna empiriska studie är baserad på data från observationer och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet visar att lärare konstruerar sin professionella identitet i relation till sina deltagares särart, d.v.s. kombinationen av att dessa är kortutbildade vuxna som ska lära sig grundläggande litteracitet och ett andraspråk, samtidigt som de etablerar sig i ett nytt samhälle. Detta ses t.ex. i lärarnas undervisning, i hur de tar till vara på möjligheter till lärande och bemöter förändringar. Resultatet illustrerar också att även om vissa perioder betyder mer för deras yrkesidentitet så är denna något som utvecklas hela tiden. Detta sker i många olika praktikgemenskaper parallellt. Undervisningspraktiken är den mest centrala, men i övrigt varierar betydelsen av de olika praktikerna från lärare till lärare. Läraridentiteten formas också av olika maktaspekter. Samhälleliga krafter, liksom ens egen position i de olika gemenskaper som finns inom andraspråks- och vuxenutbildning, bidrar till formandet av den.
