Adult Migrants with Little or no Formal Education: Language and Literacy Learning

Abstract

Some adult migrants and refugees have no home language literacy, because they have attended little or no school in their home country. There are few studies of the literacy development of these adult learners and limited professional development for teachers who work with them. Recent research, and the formation of the LESLLA organization, are bringing about a shift in research focus, practitioner training, and researcher and practitioner engagement. This article reviews research on literacy development of children and adults learning a second language and describes three projects focused on literacy development for this adult learner population.

Keywords

• Adult migrants
• native language literacy
• second language literacy
• limited language and literacy
• second language learning