Abstract

Unlike child immigrants, individuals who immigrate to the U.S. as adults do not attend U.S. K-12 schools. Adult immigrants often first experience U.S. education and language support through adult English as a Second Language (ESL). These programs have linguistic and academic goals distinct from K-12. Although some adult immigrants persist to college, researchers have not examined their transition. Furthermore, the literature that explores the experience of adult immigrant learners transitioning to college lacks a clarifying, non-deficit term to identify the group. Scholars’ failure to establish a unified term for adult immigrant students is indicative of the students’ marginalization within fields of educational scholarship and learning institutions. This article identifies limitations in the existing literature on Generation 1.5, international, and adult students. Drawing from andragogy and sociocultural theories of language acquisition, the paper adds to the academic nomenclature referring to immigrant students by introducing the term “Generation 1 learner” and a theory of Generation 1 learning. Generation 1 learners immigrated as adults and first experienced the U.S. education system in adult ESL before transitioning to college. The article concludes with suggested ways to support Generation 1 learners in basic writing and beyond .

Journal
Basic Writing e-Journal
Published
2018
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