This article is written from the perspective of 4 current MA TESOL graduate students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). These students have written about their experiences by incorporating their theoretical and pedagogical English language-teaching knowledge into the growth and maintenance of a community-based ESL program…

Educating farm labor supervisors about the regulations that govern agricultural operations and employment is critical to reducing unintentional violations of workplace safety and labor laws. Cooperative Extension can provide the training needed to professionalize this vital and diverse workforce. One challenge to providing adult education to a…

Addressing the needs of Latino workers can help improve working conditions, job satisfaction, and productivity of both employees and the companies hiring Latino workers. The study reported here assessed educational needs, communication gaps, and technical skills of Latino workers working in the horticultural industry in Iowa--an ethnic group that…

Hispanics are the country's fastest growing minority group. The study reported here surveyed and assessed Extension agents from two demographically different regions in Florida on perceptions and attitudes about the need, quality, and dissemination of Spanish Extension materials. Results showed Extension programs are important sources of…

Second language (L2) learners' successful performance in an L2 can be partly attributed to their knowledge of collocations. In some cases, this knowledge is accompanied by knowledge of the semantic and/or grammatical patterns that motivate the collocation. At other times, collocational knowledge may serve a compensatory role. To determine the…

Foreign language educators as well as educators from other disciplines agree that learning any foreign language improves student language skills and stimulates creative thinking and flexibility to use the language. The purpose of the current quantitative, correlational study was to examine the relationship between student proficiency in Spanish…

The State Compensatory Education (SCE) program is designed to reduce dropout rates and increase academic performance of students identified as being at-risk of dropping out of school. SCE operates as a funding source to supplement instructional services and offer academic support to students who meet the SCE at-risk criteria established by the…

Providing learners with control over their learning does not always result in improved learning. For instance, research on tool-use in computer-based learning environments has demonstrated that tool-use behavior of learners is often suboptimal and does not fully support learning. Advice, or guided instruction, has been recognized as an…

This dissertation focuses on the apparent linguistic discontinuity reflected in notarial texts from the twelfth to the thirteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula. Particular attention is given to the historical development of Spanish personal a (the direct object animacy marker), which can be used to trace the communicative continuity that must…

This qualitative study reports the findings implementing a pen pal letter exchange project between adult English language learners and volunteer native English speakers. The pen pal project was implemented using a holistic and socio-cultural approach to English literacy development. This article presents pen pal writing as an authentic language…

Autonomy in language learning does not simply equate with independence, as language learning is a social activity that requires interaction with others. This also applies just as much to distance language learners, who need to reconcile independent language learning and interdependence with others. This article draws on findings from 43 mid-course…

This 2008-2009 school year program in AISD uses a train-the-trainer model in which Spanish-speaking mothers participate in a 6-week course about teaching early literacy skills and preparing their children for school. Sixty-nine of 107 mothers completed the program in 2008-2009. Students of mothers who completed the program showed academic gains.

Spanish is being lost at an alarming rate in the United States, for most immigrant families within two to three generations of arrival. Previous research indicates that the third generation of Hispanic immigrants typically becomes English monolingual (Veltman 2000; Appel & Muysken 1987; Fishman 1978). This investigation examines the role…

This study examines the effects of learning context and age on second language development by comparing the language gains, measured in terms of oral and written fluency, lexical and syntactic complexity, and accuracy, experienced by four groups of learners of English: children in a study abroad setting, children in their at-home school, adults in…

The present study investigates the degree to which social, experiential and usage-related factors correlate with Spanish linguistic competence among adult Hispanic Heritage Language (HL) speakers in the United States. Two online survey instruments were developed in furtherance of this research aim: a Likert-scale survey measuring five areas of…