What does the brain actually need to learn a new language, and does your classroom teaching provide it? Walk away with practical, brain-based strategies you can use immediately to help your ESL students thrive.
About This Session
Description
Learn what research has to say about how adult brains learn a new language, how trauma and stress impact learning, and how this influences the teaching practices that we use in the language classroom.
Participants will leave with suggestions for ways teachers and tutors can apply brain-based teaching practices as we are helping adult ESL students develop their language skills.
What we'll cover:
In this workshop, participants will discover ways to immpediately apply brain-based teaching methods to their ESL classroom instruction. Participants will learn the how and the why of brain-based teaching so that they can advocate for research-backed teaching practices for their students.
We will: learn about the different types of memory and how they are utilized in learning new languages as an adult, explore how stress impacts adult students’ memory and language learning success, and pinpoint specific brain-based teaching practices that help students succeed at reaching their language goals.
Topics & Focus
Primary Topic Area
Session will also cover:
Assigned by TCALL
Pending
Audience
Level
Case study?
Promotion?
A note from the presenter:
No other info available at this time.
Handouts & Materials
No handouts or materials available at this time.
“Name of Session” – session presentation slides (PDF)
Name of Document – lesson sample (PDF)
Name of Document (PDF)
Name of Document – infographic (JPG)
Presenter
Andrea Echelberger
LESLLA
Andrea Echelberger has worked in the field of adult education as a classroom teacher and an instructional trainer for over 20 years, providing training and support for English language teachers on both a state and national level.
Andrea has worked extensively with refugee-background adult emergent readers, served as an EL Fellow and EL Specialist with the US State Department, and has developed a wide variety of workshops and classroom instructional materials for ABE teachers of all levels. She served for three years on the international board of LESLLA, an organization that focuses on adult emergent readers. Andrea’s favorite areas of research are universal design for classrooms, healing-centered classroom practices, and pronunciation instruction.
Breakout26 – ECHELBERGER
Page checked or updated: 6/10/2026
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