Learning the Rules of the Road

Stephen Mogge describes the learning experiences of an adult English language learner from Brazil who, in her quest to obtain an Illinois driver’s license, learned much more than just the “rules of the road.” The syntax of the drivers’ manual proved challenging, but less so than the knowledge of the social context in which licenses are obtained. Mogge concludes that a discreet and decontextualized approach to language learning is inadequate for meeting ELLs’ needs.