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This study aims to analyze the engagement of community members in an English as a second language (ESL) live broadcast. A platform for encouraging language and culture learning in ESL was planned and implemented. Research purposes were to explore the following aspects for engaging students’ participation: operation-monitoring, planning and implementation, incentives and motives, interactions with multiple formats and challenges.

The platform used for the ESL live broadcast was Open Broadcaster Software Studio. Through the live videos and instant messages delivered by the network, real-time interactions from different virtual sites were achieved. Observations and operation documentation were recorded. Interviews with the teacher, the library administrator and the students were carried out for collecting data. Inductive analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data from the different sources.

It was observed that the ESL broadcast reached a great number of users weekly. To engage the ESL broadcast community, efforts to monitor and plan for implementation were made. Students were encouraged by both external incentives and internal motivation. Managing the connectivity problems was essential for guaranteeing the quality of the real-time interactions. From their experiences, the participants were positive about the broadcast approach to learning ESL. More diverse topics and alternatives for oral interactions in the class are suggested in future implementations.

The implementation of the ESL live broadcast provides a model for inviting members within the university community to engage in the language and culture learning. The research is preliminary and is limited to a specific university. Future research on diverse learning settings is needed.

The findings of this study will contribute to the research in streaming media interactions. The case might be applied to other settings and other subject domains.

This qualitative case study explored the information literacy acquisition of 23 students enrolled in a learning community consisting of an advanced English as a Second Language (ESL) writing class and a one-unit class introducing students to research at a suburban community college library in California. As there are no other known learning communities that link an ESL course to a library course, this site afforded a unique opportunity to understand the ways in which ESL students learn to conduct library research. Students encountered difficulties finding, evaluating, and using information for their ESL assignments. Strategies that the students, their ESL instructor, and their instructional librarian crafted in response were enabled by the learning community structure. These strategies included integration of the two courses’ curricula, contextualized learning activities, and dialogue. ESL students in this study simultaneously discovered new language forms, new texts, new ideas, and new research practices, in large part because of the relationships that developed over time among the students, instructor, and instructional librarian. Given the increasing number of ESL students in higher education and the growing concern about their academic success, this study attempts to fill a gap in the research literature on ESL students’ information literacy acquisition.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the outcomes of more collaborative library information literacy instruction for international English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students.

This study used action research and employed three different data collection techniques: observations, semi-structured interviews and content analysis of classroom artifacts.

The paper concluded that one-shot information literacy instruction was not sufficient for international ESL students to acquire information literacy. Findings suggested that lack of secondary information literacy instruction just prior to the final papers, and lack of one-on-one mentoring opportunities hindered effective information literacy acquisition for the selected cohort of ESL students.

Results derived from this study were used to design more effective, useful and holistic information literacy instruction for international ESL students beginning next semester at this private NY College.

This is a case study where the paper has used the participatory action research to present the importance of collaboration between the classroom teacher and the librarian to improve ESL students’ information literacy experience.

ESL students often do not utilize the librarian for help or attend library orientation and instruction sessions. Academic librarians and ESL composition instructors need to bridge the gap in order to help guide international students during their academic career. This paper aims to address this issue.

This paper will describe the benefits of relationship building between a librarian and two ESL instructors at the University of Toledo and the information literacy instruction sessions created for two ESL composition classrooms.

The paper finds that librarians and ESL instructors can bridge the gap for ESL students. Understanding the needs of the international/ESL community can help librarians approach ESL instructors or the international/ESL community in a way that allows the ESL student to feel comfortable and to seek out the librarian's assistance as new needs arise.

The collaboration at the University of Toledo indicates that closer relationships are needed between librarians and ESL instructors and that more than one library session is needed to help ESL students feel comfortable with librarians and libraries.

Understanding the culture, values, beliefs, and practices that ESL students bring from their home countries and exhibit in the composition classroom can help librarians create programs that help define library services and help to bridge the gap between services provided by the librarian and the ESL composition instructor.

The very strong relationship built between the librarian and the ESL instructors had a very positive affect not only in the initial trial, but also in developing part of the curriculum for ESL composition students. This paper has great potential value for both librarians who are interested in embedding themselves in ESL programs and for ESL instructors.

As there are many Arab students seek to earn an international degree, this research article aims to explore the factors that influence Arab students' adaptation to the foreign cross-culture of the USA and how it is related to their academic achievement. Exploring these factors will introduce different insights into the effectiveness of adaptation and studying in a foreign country and earning an international degree. Besides, this study contributes to the body of knowledge of international higher education by including Arab students as a less-researched group. Arab students' adaptation process is explained in terms of the Cross-cultural Adaptation Theory (Kim, 2001).

This qualitative research study was conducted using a focus group discussion (FGD). Multiple face-to-face interviews were conducted to obtain data from the participants. Participants were divided into four groups, each female group contained nine participants and each male group contained seven participants. The researcher explained to each group independently about their perception, beliefs and attitude toward earning international degrees, the adaptation to the host culture and their academic achievement. The researcher carried out five FGDs for each group. Each interview continued for 60 minutes in length. All participants received a consent form. The discussions were audio-recorded and then transcribed.

Arab students are a group of enthusiastic learners; however, their feelings of homesickness enable them to develop overwhelming sorrowful emotions, howbeit their communication with their ethnic group facilitates the adaption and acceptance of the host cultures, which requires quite some time to adjust to new surroundings. Arab students are recognized with high academic achievements; nevertheless, they require prolonged periods to complete course assignments. American society gives international students a warm welcome; this may encourage other Arab students to consider earning an American degree and prepare themselves for this intercultural transition.

This is subjective qualitative data; some limitations need to be addressed when interpreting the findings. Participants are English as a Second Language (ESL)learners, which may influence their word choice during the discussion. Interesting future research could be related to designing an assessment model to evaluate the academic achievement of ESL in different methods that focus on their achievement motivations and communication skills.

Based on the findings, professors can integrate the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to help multi-cultural students to learn and earn an international higher education degree.

Higher education institutions can offer more social multi-cultural opportunities to include multi-cultural students and develop their social skills to facilitate the adaptation process to the new host culture.

This qualitative research study represents an original work of the researcher, and it has not submitted elsewhere. All research ethical codes were followed by the researcher and participants. There is no fund for this research project.

This chapter shows how the community college plays a unique role in producing American citizens with “global competence,” one of the main aims of institutions of higher education under the banner of its internationalization. While much discussion on how to achieve that aim has centered on study-abroad programs and curriculum changes targeting American-born students, this chapter focuses on the community college's contribution to producing “globally competent” American citizens through extensive classes in English as a Second Language (ESL) for immigrants. Based on ethnographic fieldwork from 2001 to 2002 in ESL classes at a community college in the northeastern United States, this chapter examines three ways a community college's ESL classes foster such “global competence” in immigrants of various backgrounds: (1) by grooming them to be “American educated subjects” by disciplining them and teaching them “common sense” knowledge of American life, (2) by providing them with a space to develop a supportive community that goes beyond their ethnic networks, and (3) by nurturing students’ self-esteem in their new home. This chapter highlights the worldwide importance of the type of higher education, such as a community college, that serves the needs of local communities, including internationalized and underserved local communities – that of immigrants. It also points out the imbalance in the discussion of “global competence,” which focuses mainly on study abroad, and opens up a field of enquiry about “global competence” from another angle.

In the field of second language acquisition, much attention has been paid to which variables (such as age, race, social class, ethnicity or gender) have influence on language learning, or to how such variables may affect language acquisition. The intent of this study was to examine gender at an intersection with ethnicity by exploring it within an ESL experience. Ethnography as method helped such an exploration. The past twenty-five years or so have presented educators with a wealth of research on what happens to girls in schools, though female ESL students may not be benefiting from this same research (Cochran, 1996; Sunderland, 1994, 1995, 1998; Vandrick, 1999a, b; Willett, 1996; Yepez, 1994). As a result, there is a compelling need to bring feminist pedagogical research to ESL research. In this ethnography the amount of talk in an ESL classroom was measured and discussed, settling largely on a lack of linguistic space of girls in this language learning context. The concept of ‘linguistic space’ was first used by Mahony (1985) when referring to conversational participation in a British classroom. This study borrows her use of the term as a way to explore the language production in a Canadian ESL classroom.

This paper aims to outline research that explores the information literacy experiences of English as a foreign language (EFL) students. The question explored in this research was: how do EFL students experience information literacy?

This study used phenomenography, a relational approach to explore the information literacy experiences of EFL students. Phenomenography studies the qualitatively different ways a phenomenon is experienced in the world around us.

This research revealed that EFL students experienced information literacy in four qualitatively different ways. The four categories revealed through the data were: process, quality, language and knowledge. This research found that language impacted on EFL students’ experiences of information literacy and revealed that EFL students applied various techniques and strategies when they read, understood, organised and translated information.

This research was conducted in a specific cultural and educational context; therefore, the results might not reflect the experiences of EFL students in other cultural or educational contexts.

The findings from this research offer an important contribution to information literacy practice by providing important insights about EFL students’ experiences and perceptions of information and learning that can be used to inform curriculum development in second language learning contexts.

There is currently a lack of research using a relational approach to investigate EFL students’ experiences of information literacy. There is also limited research that explores the impact language has on information literary and learning in EFL or English as a second language (ESL) contexts.

The teaching of English and academic writing in universities has largely been explored in western higher education settings by native English speakers from the UK, USA or Anglo-countries. The purpose of this paper is to use action research as a methodology to unravel local complexities in power relations within and beyond her ESL academic writing classroom, in a British Malaysian university setting.

Power relations are examined in conjunction with the lens of Academic Literacies as a theory to think about teaching academic writing. The author’s action research cycles allow her to gain an insider perspective on her students’ academic writing and learning problems.

Through the use of stories collected from diaries, interviews and letters, the author is able to make sense of their learning experiences in a way that connects the individual with the social.

Although time-consuming, the action research cycles helped the author to gauge what does or does not work in the classroom and how she can best improve her practice and the students learning, once she reflected on the findings. However, given the oppressive nature of hierarchical institutions that can deter the raising of issues, the limits of action research in making more widespread changes to teaching and English language usage in a former colony’s institution are explored.

It appears that the internal power relations between teacher and student can alter somewhat, although not massively, within the confines of one classroom, but there is less potential for effecting broader institutional change from the positioning of one junior lecturer.

Diversity is an important concern at all levels of learning. This chapter discusses how acceptance of diversity and genuine inclusion of all learners does not happen easily; however, purposeful and collaborative experiences allowing various groups of students to interact with one another can be valuable. Personal impressions of the importance of diversity in classrooms are shared; in addition, a review of some related literature regarding the implications of cooperative experiences that engage students across cultures and languages is presented. Descriptions of two collaborative experiences in which pre-service teachers connected with refugees and International students are also shared. An especially important focus of this chapter is on how pre-service teachers benefit from multicultural experiences. Pre-service teachers were encouraged to consider biases and cultural differences while interacting with individuals from other countries, all of which might help them in their careers. International learners were also more connected to the learning community, and were inspired to learn more about the English language and American culture through social experiences with others. When intentional communication occurs, feelings of isolation might decrease and confidence can increase, thus creating a positive learning experience for all.