From the archiveProject page, captured July 2011
LESLLA
Low Educated Second Language and Literacy Acquisition (LESLLA) for Adults is an international forum of researchers who share an interest in research on the development of second language skills by adult immigrants with little or no schooling prior to arriving in the country of entry.
The goal of LESLLA is to share empirical research and information to help inform and guide further research on second language acquisition for the low-educated adult population. This research in turn will provide guidance to education policy development in all those countries in which immigrants settle and most need educational support.
LESLLA intends to bring together linguists, psycho-linguists, psychologists and educational scientists to establish a multi-country and multi-target-language research group to study effective methods of language acquisition and literacy. No other group exists that meets regularly to consider interdisciplinary research on adult immigrants learning to speak and write a language other than their native language.
LESLLA was established at the first workshop held at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands on 25-27 August 2005. A second workshop was held in Richmond, Virginia, in the United States on 2-3 November 2006. The third LESLLA workshop was held in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, on 13-15 September 2007, and the most recent in Antwerp, Belgium, on 23-25 October 2008.
For more information, please visit the LESLLA web site at leslla.org. There you will find resources for working with this population, relevant links, and workshop descriptions, as well as information about purchasing the workshops’ proceedings, which have been published annually.
View the contents of the proceedings of the 2006 international LESLLA forum. The press release for the Richmond forum describes the program.
| Workshop | Dates | Host city |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 25–27 August 2005 | Tilburg, Netherlands |
| 2nd | 2–3 November 2006 | Richmond, Virginia, USA |
| 3rd | 13–15 September 2007 | Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| 4th | 23–25 October 2008 | Antwerp, Belgium |
Added in 2026
LESLLA kept its four letters but changed what they stand for: the organization now calls itself Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults, which drops the label “low-educated” from the learners it studies. It still holds an annual symposium and publishes proceedings. A plain-language summary of what its research has found is in the Field Note Teaching adults who are new to print.
Questions readers ask
What is LESLLA?
An international network of researchers and teachers who study adults learning to read and speak a second language after little or no schooling in their first. It began with a workshop at Tilburg University in 2005.
What was the Richmond connection?
The Literacy Institute hosted the second LESLLA workshop at VCU on 2–3 November 2006 and published its proceedings.
Does LESLLA still exist?
Yes. It still meets every year and keeps its website at leslla.org, although it now spells the acronym out as Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults.