Improving the Comprehension and Vocabulary Skills of English Learners in an Adult Education Program

• In Event: Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Adult Education and Adult Literacy Practice

Abstract

English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in adult education classrooms need support to develop their English vocabulary and comprehension proficiencies, especially for academic and conceptually complex materials. A pilot intervention program was developed to build vocabulary and comprehension skills of ESL learners in three adult education classrooms. The intervention used civics and American history texts as the starting point and introduced the key vocabulary items, included strategies for inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words and facilitated an awareness of morphological structures. The intervention also integrated writing, reading and speaking and built on the existing cultural knowledge of the learners. The preliminary data showed significant growth in the vocabulary levels of the learners.

Authors

• Aydin Durgunoglu, University of Minnesota - Duluth

• Anurag Sagar, Center For Literacy

• Kathy Fagan, Center for Literacy

• Rachel Brown, Center for Literacy