Thoughts on the progress of my final paper

After our meeting about the final paper, I have decided to change course and focus on a topic that would be more beneficial to me as a possible future adult ESL teacher. In the upcoming semester I will be volunteering at in an adult ESL community that meets twice a week from 6:30-9:30. There are levels 1-6 that the learners are placed in and I would like to better prepare myself through my research for this paper so that I can be most helpful to the learners. I would like to address how to best teach older or adult learners by incorporating integrating learning skills.

I think it is important to explore how to best support these students and I will be focusing on this for my final paper. It seems that the goal of this program is to help the learners move from each level until they have reached level 6 and through my observation over Thanksgiving break, I will be able to apply the research I do to what I see helps progress the learners in the classroom. I would like to see how advanced the learners can develop their communicative competence passed the critical period.

A similar article that would help me is “Cooperative Learning, Collaborative Learning, and Interaction: Three Communicative Strands in the Language Classroom” written by Rebecca L. Oxford. I also think it is important to read “Developing Communicative Competence: a practical model” written by Richard C. Helt among with other articles more specifically written regarding adult ESL learners so I can compare my findings with  my research in the classroom.