Improving language learning for the non‐English‐language native speaker

Abstract

school's ethnic composition, which in turn reflects the nation's: about 10 percent Hispanic, 12 percent Black, almost 2 percent Asian/Pacific, and .05 percent Native American, with the remainder White and largely monolingual in English (though some may have a home background in Italian, Polish, French, German, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Arabic, or other). Yet as the 45-minute period goes by, the principal notices that the three Hispanic students' behavior patterns are at some variance from their classmates': Normally bright Ruben sits listless and head-hung, paying no attention but responding rapidly, almost disdainfully, to the few questions Mr. Gonzalez sends his way; Ana Maria, usually quiet, is giggling and whispering to her friend Jennifer and seems to view the lesson as one vast joke; courteous Ricardo inexplicably blows up at something Mr. Gonzalez says to him in Spanish and then asks him after class if he can study another language.