Education Commons^™

Digital Literacy For Older Adult English Language Learners, Talley Caruso

Master's Projects and Capstones

When essential services transition to digital platforms, individuals with limited digital proficiency, immigrant English Language Learners (ELLs), and older adults aged 65 and above face challenges accessing these resources, leading to potential exclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to online interactions and services due to lockdown measures, reducing face-to-face interactions. This sudden transition left individuals without digital skills unable to access healthcare, essential services, and maintain connections with their support networks. Addressing this issue presents an opportunity to promote inclusivity, empowerment, and community engagement through targeted digital literacy training.

Digital literacy encompasses the ability to navigate technology such as …

Addressing Linguistic Isolation Through Community Based Esl And Emergency Preparedness, Lisa Guay

Master's Projects and Capstones

Linguistic isolation acts as a barrier to the well-being and social integration of Limited English Proficient (LEP) adults. Community-based English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, designed with learner-centric curricula, may help LEPs gain access to social and navigational capital in the form of English proficiency, confidence and social integration. Community-based ESL programs provide adult English Language Learners (ELLs) with a path to English proficiency and social integration, but curricula should be geared toward ELLs’ needs. There is a need for ESL curricula focused on emergency and disaster preparedness, curricula which may contribute positively to adult ELLs’ speaking skills and …

Engaging Older Immigrants To Learn English: Advocating For Late-In-Life Learning For Everyone, Susan Marie Filous

Master's Projects and Capstones

In the United States, late-in-life and aging-in-place immigrants require basic English language skills to support their ability to independently access economic, medical, housing, legal, and social services. Older immigrants typically rely on family members, potentiating the risks of neglect and dependency. There is an opportunity to expand their agency in society by increasing their English proficiency.

Foreign language geragogy supports differentiated educational strategies for older learners. There is no upper age limit on the ability to learn a new language, and there are new methods and practices to teach foreign languages to older students. It is insufficient to mainstream older …

People, Not Headlines: Teaching English To Ukrainian Refugees, Katherine Gardiner

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, thousands of Ukrainians have fled their home country, many resettling in English-speaking countries. Ukrainian refugees bring with them many strengths; however, the challenges of surviving in another country on top of the language barrier and the trauma they may carry must be carefully considered and given special attention by instructors of refugees. The purpose of this project is to address the lack of English teaching material for the increasingly growing population of Ukrainian refugees in North America. The handbook is informed by current pedagogy on community building, promoting self-efficacy and …

Uncorking The Speaking Skill: Wine And Prosody In Conversation, Efren Antonio Serra

Master's Projects and Capstones

Although the skill of speaking is necessary for attaining basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS), most traditional second language acquisition programs base their pedagogy and curriculums on lexis and grammar of the written form and phonology/phonetics. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate how to effectively adapt content-specific material for developing the speaking skill at community colleges with adult students who are interested in pursuing a career in the wine industry as a sommelier. Courses for becoming a sommelier or a server in the wine industry are traditionally offered at community colleges under the culinary arts and hospitality management programs, …

Techniques For Reducing Public Speaking Anxiety In Adult English Learners, Andy Mardesich

Master's Projects and Capstones

Making presentations to a group is a complex skill that takes time to develop, and it can be intimidating and anxiety inducing. Using mindset theory and feedback from interviews with community college teachers, this teacher's guide, Techniques for Reducing Public Speaking Anxiety in Adult English Learners, discusses approaches for reducing anxiety in an adult ESOL/EFL speaking classroom. It discusses the importance of providing a safe and comfortable environment to practice and manage anxiety, building good support structures, providing clear rubrics and student roles, and offering plenty of opportunities for interaction through purposeful communication. This guide holds significance for students, teachers, …

Desde El Suelo: Resources For Anti Colonial And Abolitionist Educators In Puerto Rico, Jazdil Poupart-Feliciano

Master's Projects and Capstones

“Desde el Suelo” is a set of resources, activities and reflections created for educators looking to name, understand and heal from the systemic harms experienced in our schooling in order to interrupt these cycles and better support children, youth and ourselves in our liberation. For Puerto Rican educators, this process begins with the understanding that any system created with the goal of expanding the u.s. empire through racist occupation and epistemicide can never be reformed into promoting freedom or social justice. Pulling from abolitionist teaching and critical pedagogy, inspired by historical struggles for Black liberation across the diaspora and in …

Enhancing The Communicative Competence Of Filipino Immigrants In America, Zsanel Aranas

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field project focuses on enhancing the communicative competence of Filipino immigrants in America through developing a workshop program. The Filipino immigrant community in America is diverse and they struggle to overcome language barriers and adapt to their new environment. This project aims to solve these struggles by providing valuable skills and resources for successful communication. The workshop program is a four-unit modular material that covers areas relevant to speaking and communication, such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, writing, speaking, and cultural competence. By enhancing their communicative competence, Filipino immigrants can engage in meaningful conversations, develop public speaking skills, and create …

When Culturally Responsive Practices Meet Social-Emotional Learning: A Guide For Educators, Sharon Ju-Ting Cheng

Master's Projects and Capstones

Many educators hope to give their students quality and well-rounded education while balancing all the contents they need to learn. Social-emotional learning (SEL) and culturally responsive teaching, however, are two areas that teachers seem to struggle with (Stark et al., 2021). Teachers have encountered situations where it was difficult for them to support their students due to the cultural differences between the teacher and student (Heineke & Vera, 2021). This lack of professional development in the culturally responsive aspect is concerning.

The shortfall of training leads to failure to apply these practices into schools. For newcomer students, who are usually …