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Volume 14, Issue 2 (2022)

Winter 2022 Issue

Editor's Foreword

As 2022 comes to a close, we would like to present the second issue of Volume 14 of the Journal of English Learner Education. There are seven articles in this issue.

In the first article, Implementing a Humanistic Approach Towards Educational Equity for English Learners, Dr. Deborah Wheeler (Cloud State University) provides insights for practitioners and professionals, effective practices, and strategies utilizing a humanistic approach towards educational equity for ELs.

The second article, Foreign Language Anxiety: A Review on Theories, Causes, Consequences and Implications for Educators by Ms. Padideh Fattahi Marnani (University of Central Florida) and Dr. Sophie Cuocci (University of Central Florida), reviews various aspects of foreign language anxiety, its corresponding theoretical frameworks and models, causes, consequences, gender differences, class modalities (in this review, face-to-face and online) and implications for educators.

In the third article, Making Thinking Visible: Reading Metacognitive Strategies in Intensive English Programs, Dr. Adil Bentahar (University of Delaware) evaluated whether teaching three metacognitive strategies (planning, monitoring, and evaluating) would improve intensive English program international students’ metacognitive knowledge. Eight college English learners (ELs) completed the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Inventory (MARSI) and a reading test at the beginning of a reading-writing course and again at the end of the course. The results revealed an increase from pretest to posttest in all three domains of reading strategies: global strategies, problem-solving strategies, and support strategies with statistically significant differences in each reading scale.

The fourth article, Technology in the Classroom: Features Language Teachers Should Consider by Dr. Sophie Cuocci (University of Central Florida) and Ms. Padideh Fattahi Marnani (University of Central Florida), highlights some of the recent studies exploring the positive and negative factors affecting language learning and provides tech recommendations to practicing educators.

In the fifth article, Creating Pedagogically Effective and Visually Appealing Instructional Slides: Design Tips for Language Educators, Dr. Anny Fritzen Case (Gonzaga University), describes five basic graphic design principles that teachers can apply when creating slide presentations (PowerPoint and others). Through the application of these principles, instructional materials have a higher potential of being both visually appealing and pedagogically effective for language learners.

The sixth article, Effects of Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Instructional Approaches on English-Learning Undergraduate College Students: An Exploratory Study by Dr. Ivana Markova (San Francisco State University) and Dr. Cristina L. Azocar (San Francisco State University), explores EL students’ perceptions of the opportunities for interaction in synchronous and asynchronous online university classroom modalities. In their mixed methods study, participants (n=105) were selected from a large sample pool of 261 EL undergraduate student participants aged 18 to 35. Results indicated that EL students perceived synchronous courses to provide more opportunities for interaction (both language input and output) than asynchronous online courses.

The final article, Vocabulary Masks by Ms. Kim Hardiman (Daytona State College), was inspired by the COVID-19 practice of wearing personal protective equipment; namely, face masks. Ms. Hardiman pairs EL vocabulary learning with different types of masks, including Halloween masks, in both face-to-face and online learning.

As the year comes to an end, learning fortunately continues to move forward! New knowledge, whether it is language acquisition or a brief realization, is a part of the wisdom that experience can instill in us. We hope that the new year brings you joy, new achievements, success, and renewed connections with your passions and interests.

Warm regards,
Laura E. Monroe, PhD
Editor