Courtney Cunningham

Building Teaching Materials for Adult English Language Learners: Interaction, Authenticity, and Spoken Corpora Courtney Cunningham

This book contains details of a study that investigated the needs of adult English Language Learners (ELLs) studying English in the community college setting in the U. S. The study was conducted in Western North Carolina, where administrators, teachers, and students of three different community colleges were interviewed. Interviews revealed that learners in this context are primarily interested in increasing speaking and listening skills so that that they can better communicate in situations they encounter on a regular basis. Extensive research regarding effective English Language Teaching for adult ELLs helped establish criteria for teaching materials that would be beneficial for this group of learners. Textbook evaluations were created and applied to textbooks that were commonly used in all of the participating community colleges, as well as a corpus-based textbook that was created using the Cambridge Corpus of Spoken North American English and not used at any of the colleges. The research conducted for this study is highlighted in this book, as well as suggestions for creating both textbook and computer programs that will better meet the needs of this learner population.