For many adult ESL learners, the greatest barrier to learning is not language ability – it is everything they carry into the classroom. Housing insecurity, financial stress, visa pressures, and social isolation consume the cognitive and emotional resources students need to engage. Drawing on cognitive load theory and second language acquisition research, this article argues that wellbeing is not an optional add-on to teaching, but a prerequisite for learning. When students feel unsafe or unsettled, learning becomes a low priority. Rather than waiting for problems to surface, teachers and institutions should embed wellbeing support visibly and consistently into everyday practice. Practical, low-barrier adjustments, repeating key information, using real-world materials, clarifying support pathways, and building genuine rapport can meaningfully shift how a classroom feels. Reinterpreting student behaviour through a lens of curiosity rather than assumption is equally important. Small changes at the classroom level can drive broader institutional progress over time.
This article presents Communicative Discourse Teaching, a practical approach for English language teachers seeking to develop learners’ awareness of language use through structured interaction. It conceptualises classroom talk not only as task completion, but as metadiscourse – learners jointly negotiating how language should be used to achieve shared understanding. By distinguishing between task and metatask, the approach shifts focus from correct answers to collaborative meaning-making. This article shows how teachers can guide learners through discourse stages – Define, Describe, Analyse, and Conclude – while observing and assessing participation. The approach aims to support teachers in fostering learner autonomy, confidence, and increasingly sophisticated language use through reflective, communicative practice.
This article explores the application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in English language classrooms to better support neurodiverse learners, with a focus on autism and ADHD. Central to UDL is the premise that learning barriers arise from inflexible pedagogical environments rather than from learner deficits, and that variability in motivation, processing, and expression is an expected feature of any classroom. The three core UDL principles, Engagement, Representation, and Action & Expression, are examined in terms of their practical application to language teaching, with strategies such as structured routines, multimodal input, and flexible assessment discussed as means of reducing cognitive and emotional load. Drawing on both research and practitioner experience, the article argues that these approaches do not merely accommodate difference but foster genuinely accessible and responsive learning environments for all students.
This action research evaluated the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tool, ChatGPT, to support students in note-taking practice. It was aimed to see if forty-nine students in an English course at a Melbourne-based institution (hereafter, referred to as MI) would independently use ChatGPT for note-taking and quiz generation after three GenAI lessons. Applying a mixed-method approach, data were collected through two surveys, three after-class polls, and three focus group interviews. The two main findings included a significant improvement in student engagement and the importance of explicit GenAI teaching in class. However, three key issues were identified: (1) the challenge for English language learners to construct effective task prompts, (2) the quality of questions generated by ChatGPT, and (3) the selection of appropriate audio materials. Our recommendations, therefore, include integrating GenAI lessons into the syllabus and providing ChatGPT prompt writing training for both teachers and students.
This article examines the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in English language teaching for adults from migrant and refugee backgrounds through the theoretical lenses of Bakhtin’s dialogism and Bhabha’s notion of third space and hybridity. As generative AI platforms become increasingly embedded in educational contexts, there is an urgent need to move beyond instrumental conceptions of AI as a neutral tool and to interrogate the cultural, linguistic and ideological dimensions of human–AI interaction in language learning. Drawing on Bakhtin’s understanding of language as inherently dialogic and socially situated, and Bhabha’s theorisation of hybrid cultural spaces where new meanings are negotiated, this article argues that generative AI can function as a dialogic interlocutor within a productive third space, but only when deployed with critical pedagogical intent. The article reviews existing literature on AI in adult English language education, including recent empirical research on educator, learner, and leader attitudes toward generative AI in this sector, and establishes a theoretical framework grounded in dialogism and hybridity. It analyses the affordances, limitations, and dangers of generative AI in this context, with particular attention to diminished criticality, the erasure of embodied learning and creativity, and cultural homogenisation. The article concludes by proposing pedagogical approaches that foster critical AI literacy and preserve the multiplicity of human–AI collaborative possibilities.
