About Jose V. Torres
Scholar | Educator | Author | Advocate for Multilingual Learners
The I Want To Learn English project began as a response to a persistent gap I observed while teaching adult ESL classes at Baltimore City Community College. The textbooks provided for our free community English courses were well-intentioned but incomplete. They were thin on explanation, overly focused on conversation practice, and built on the assumption that beginner students already understood much of the English being modeled. My low-level learners struggled with the basics: distinguishing long and short vowels, decoding sounds, and understanding direction words such as listen, write, and match.
When I voiced my frustrations to my program director, he jokingly said, “Maybe you should write your own textbook.” I took him at his word. What began as a few expanded lessons became a full instructional framework grounded in phonics and explicit literacy instruction. Over the next several years, I refined, tested, and expanded these materials with hundreds of students. Their engagement and improved test scores confirmed what research in applied linguistics has long suggested—beginning English learners need systematic instruction that starts with the sounds and structure of the language itself.
Five years later, I Want To Learn English (Level 1) became a complete, research-based textbook now used in adult education programs across Maryland and beyond. Its second edition integrates technology through QR codes linking to video lessons for extended practice—bringing structured literacy directly to learners worldwide.
I authored a peer-reviewed study in the Journal for English Learner Education on phonics-based literacy outcomes for adult ESL students and have presented my findings internationally at the TESOL International Convention (Seattle, 2017) and LESLLA Symposium (Portland, 2018), as well as at MIDTESOL, SETESOL, Maryland TESOL, MELEd, and MAACCE in subsequent years.
I also host two YouTube channels: I Want To Learn English for learners and I Want To Teach English for educators—continuing my mission to make English literacy accessible, clear, and empowering for all.
My work is guided by a simple conviction: that literacy is liberation. Every sound learned, every word written, and every sentence understood moves a learner closer to self-reliance and dignity. Scholarship, to me, is not an abstract pursuit, it’s a moral one. It begins in the classroom, in the quiet determination of a learner sounding out a new word, and extends into research, authorship, and innovation. Through every book, lesson, and presentation, my purpose remains constant: to ensure that no learner stands at the threshold of language without a door to open.
“Education must first be humane, then it can be transformative.”
—Jose Vasilio Torres
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