The use of closed-caption television (CCTV) to help teach English as a Second Language (ESL) to adults was studied with a group of adult students in the Arlington, Virginia, Education and Employment Program. Although CCTV is designed for the hearing impaired, its combination of written with spoken English in the visual context of television makes its possibilities for ESL intriguing. Consideration must be given, however, to programs with appropriate content, appropriate length, and verbatim or quasi-verbatim captioning. Experimentation was done with "Sesame Street," a soap opera, a courtroom drama, and an episode of PBS's "Reading Rainbow" called "Ludlow Laughs." The latter was the most successful due to its use of adult emotions, simple language, verbatim captioning, slow narration, overall length, lack of copyright restrictions, and inclusion of other segments about comedy and laughter. Among the findings are the following: students repeated phrases of the text while watching and anticipated the spoken text on third and fourth viewings; students used new and unusual vocabulary from the program in follow-up discussions and written exercises; and students with advanced speaking and listening abilities show the best ability to use CCTV. Contains 5 references. (Adjunct ERIC Clearinghouse on Literacy Education) (LB)