(See Activities to Promote Interaction and Communication, for examples of these activities and games.)

Giving learners opportunities to interact with the teacher and with each other, planning instruction to include tasks that promote these opportunities, and teaching language forms and vocabulary in the context of meaningful learning activities are all ways in which second language acquisition research may be applied in the classroom.

What Does the Research Say About Learning to Read in English?

The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) found that more than half of the U. S. population studied had low literacy skills and that compared to native English speakers, a higher percentage of non-native English speakers read English at the lowest levels (Kirsch, Jungeblut, Jenkins, & Kolstad, 1993; Greenburg, Macías, Rhodes, & Chan, 2001). Adults performing at the lowest levels had difficulty with basic literacy tasks in English, such as reading documents (e.g., time tables, forms, and maps), reading prose (e.g., newspaper articles, instructions on medicine bottles), and performing numeracy tasks (e.g., computing hours, calculating interest rates). These outcomes have caused concern that many adults, both native and non-native English speakers, lack the reading, writing, and functional skills necessary for living in a literate society. However, there is very little research on the reading development of adults who are non- native English speakers.

The National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE) synthesized the limited research on adults learning English that was published between 1980 and 2002 (Burt, Peyton, & Adams, 2003). This synthesis focused on the reading development of adults in adult education and college-based intensive English programs (IEPs). The adults in these studies were ages 16 years and older and not enrolled in secondary schools. The research reviewed was published in refereed (peer-reviewed) journals, dissertations, the ERIC database, the Modern Language Association database, the Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts database, and books. Studies were included if they reported (1) outcomes related to reading (and, where applicable, general literacy) development, (2) descriptions of the adults participating, (3) details on the intervention or study situation, and (4) information on the procedures and outcome measures. The studies included used experimental or quasi-experimental methodologies based on comparisons between groups (with statistical tests for significance), non-experimental methods, and qualitative methods (descriptive and practitioner research). Theoretical discussions of reading development also were included. Descriptions of the articles reviewed, along with an annotated bibliography of the research (Adams & Burt, 2002 http://cal-org.wdi.net/caela/readingbib/) and a synthesis of the research (Burt, Peyton, & Adams, 2003 http://cal-org.wdi.net/store), are available online.

In addition, Kruidenier (2002) has reviewed the research on reading instruction with native English speakers in adult basic education (ABE) programs. This and other resources are available online at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading.