2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase
Volunteer Language Scaffolding in an Elders' Refugee ESL Classroom
Document Type
Student Presentation
Presentation Date
4-24-2026
Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Aiden VanderStouwe
Abstract
Adult ESL programs are vital in supporting refugee language learning and integration into American society. However, the language use of community volunteers in these classrooms is often overlooked even though they hold an important role in leading small group work where students actively participate. Though research has been done on EFL classrooms and ELLs (Mahan & Ruiz), there has been little research done studying the scaffolding techniques used by community volunteers in an Elders refugee ESL setting. This linguistic ethnography looks at an Elders refugee ESL classroom through participant observation and an analysis of the interactions between volunteers and students over the course of several weeks, focusing on how volunteers use scaffolding in classroom activities. Volunteers use simplified grammar, prompting, and guided questions to aid comprehension and create a more supportive learning environment by increasing participation. The volunteers are both facilitating language learning and encouraging participation concurrently. This study shows how important community volunteers’ language use is to refugee ESL programs and contributes to the broader field on linguistic ethnography by demonstrating how scaffolding can improve student understanding and learning.
Recommended Citation
Lynch, Paxton and VanderStouwe, Aiden, "Volunteer Language Scaffolding in an Elders' Refugee ESL Classroom" (2026). 2026 Undergraduate Research Showcase. 123.
https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/under_showcase_2026/123