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Taking a Snapshot of the Academic Library Needs of ESL/Multilingual First Generation College Students

Abstract
This poster ties into the conference themes of making the library "accessible" to all students (focusing on ESL/MLL student populations) and providing interactive and engaging instruction that holds attention. While there has been a significant amount of research on how academic librarians can work with multilingual international students, there is a gap in the literature for how academic librarians can best serve multilingual/ESL learners who have completed some or all of their education in the U.S. The learning objective of this poster is to demonstrate the way academic librarians can collaborate with ESL/multilingual learner (MLL) instructors to assess the academic library needs of ESL/MLL students. Different from a typical library survey, our poster will showcase the results of a flipped, student-led survey conducted in the Fall 2022 semester with a group of first generation, ESL/MLL college students. The survey used a communicative learning framework (often used in ESL teaching) where students interviewed each other on a series of questions related to their academic library use and then graphed the group's answers. This flipped survey was more engaging than a traditional, passive survey because students took an active learning role using the precepts of Bloom's Taxonomy (Creating, Analyzing, Understanding, Remembering). The results of this collaborative assessment provided insight on how academic libraries can be more accessible to first generation ESL/MLL college students. The presenters will ask attendees to share their own experiences and strategies for engaging ESL/MLL students at their own institutions. Attendees will take away a sample survey template they can replicate and ideas for outreach strategies they can use with ESL/MLL student populations at their own institutions.
Type
poster
event
Date
2023-06-05
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