Years ago, a social worker friend taught me that the best way to help people tackle difficult challenges was to focus on past instances of success rather than on failure. Success, he told me, was worthy of detailed investigation: What factors contributed to successful outcomes? And how can we encourage more of what has worked well in the past for others who are similarly situated?

When I began teaching English as a second language, this advice came to mind. As I watched my adult immigrant students struggle to master our verb tenses or wrap their tongues around our sound system, I decided that it might be useful to investigate how successful adult ELLs went about achieving fluency in English. What were the secrets of their success? What strategies had worked well for them?

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