ESL Program Research Articles

Variables Affecting the Successful Learning of English as a Second Language

The success that one has in learning a second language may be influenced by many variables, including differences in environmental surroundings and individual characteristics of the learner. There have been few studies which systematically examine the influence of these variables on second language learning. This paper examines the effect which certain environmental variables have upon learning to speak English as a second language. Approximately 500 elementary and high school students, enrolled in English as a second language classes in public schools in the Washington, D.C. area, were administered oral production tests at the beginning and end of the school year. These tests, an Oral Interview or the Second Language Oral Production English (SLOPE) Test, were given to students in different schools who were in various types of ESL programs. The preand post-test scores were used to assess the progress made during the school year by these students in learning to speak English. The scores were then examined to describe the influence that multiple variables had upon progress in English oral production. The variables examined included such differences as time in ESL class, size of class, method of teaching and number of foreign students in the school. It was found that all groups of students made significant progress in speaking English during the school year, but that those making most marked improvement were in school settings where the use of English was encouraged and necessary for effective communication.

Achieving Certification through a Modified Competency-Based TESL Teacher Education Program

The widely heralded competency-based approach to teacher education (CBTE) contains pitfalls as well as potential advantages for English as a second language programs. There is a danger that values and humanistic concerns may be neglected in favor of easy-to-measure though perhaps much less significant concrete objectives. But the shared goals of teacher and learner, relevance, practicality, and accountability constitute compelling reasons for granting CBTE a hearing. In Utah, as elsewhere in the nation, ESL programs and competencybased teacher training tended to develop independently. A pioneer CBTE program initiated nearly eight years ago for secondary teachers covered nine areas ranging from instruction to personal development and incorporating over a hundred objectives. When TESL certification was sought from the State Board of Education, instructional competencies were requested as well as a full analysis of ESL needs in the state. In addition to the successful certification process, local modifications in competency-based models lent considerable credibility to the CBTE format. For example, there was a coalescing of the highly fragmented catalog of discrete objectives, and an infusion of values and humanistic elements. Recommendations for TESL programs desiring state certification include identifying ESL needs, collaborating with Colleges of Education, and employing a modified form of competency-based teacher education.

Meeting the Needs of Children with Diverse Linguistic and Ethnic Backgrounds

ABSTRACT Meeting the needs of the multilingual student population at King Elementary School posed a challenge. An ESL program met only some of those needs; to meet others, the school adapted the goals and principles of bilingual education. English was the basic language of the school, but non‐English speakers were given language arts, in addition to tutoring in other subject areas, in their native language. They also received ESL instruction. At the same time, native English speakers studied a second language. Interculturai education was also emphasized, with the focus on the cultural background of the children and their teachers. The evaluation of the program showed that these students did as well on standardized tests as children from the total school district, that the King children were more willing to accept children speaking a different language, and that the King parents felt the program was successful. As a result, King School was opened to any child in the district, native or non‐native English speaker, for whom there was room. This paper reports on the first year of the program.

A Student-Led-Tutorial Approach in Sri Lanka

An experimental university ESL program at Vidyodaya campus of the University of Sri T anka features small, student-led tutorial groups for the development of conversational skill and college reading skill. Circles of six students meeting daily tutor each other with only occasional guidance from professional ESL teachers, who manage several such groups working simultaneously in the same classroom. This approach may be useful in other university programs where a reasonable number of students on campus already have advanced English proficiency, and where the scarcity of funds for professional ESL teachers makes small-group instruction economically prohibitive.

Three Functional Tests of Oral Proficiency

This paper is a description of three experimental tests that attempt to measure communicative competence. The Spanish-English Dominance Assessment Test was developed to permit assignment of sixand sevenyear-old children to appropriate streams in a New Mexico school with a bilingual education program. The Navajo-English Dominance Interview, also intended to be used with six-year-olds beginning school, was used to validate teacher ratings in a study of Navajo language maintenance. The Oral Placement Test for Adults is an experimental instrument to place non-literate adults in appropriate levels of an ESL program. The three tests display certain common principles in developing useable functional tests. Each is closely tied to the practical situation for which it was prepared and is intended to be used by relatively untrained testers with the simplest possible materials. Results are gross, classifying rather than ranking students, but this is appropriate to the goals.

A Total Approach to the High School English-as-a Second-Language Program

The high school ESL program should not be isolated from the other academic disciplines in the school. Instead, it should utilize the total resources of the school and synthesize its educational approach with the school's ideological mainstream. Specific mention is made as to how the ESL program can work with the music, art, reading, home economics, and physical education disciplines. Suggestive advice is directed towards both the administrative and teaching levels. Inherent throughout the article is the author's belief that the fostering of a bilingual attitude towards education and the development of language classes and academic content classes in the foreign-born student's native language are goals that the ESL program is obligated to work toward. In instances where a bilingual approach is not feasible because of a divergent multi-lingual student population, it is recommended that the ESL program assume responsibility for educating foreign-born students in history, mathematics, and science. This concept is to be favored over the placing of students in subject areas prior to the attainment of a functional performance level in oral and written English.

Implications from transitional bilingual and immersion programmes for transitional ESL programmes in a post apartheid South Africa

This article is based on various papers given, and research done, by Dr Carey during his July 1992 visit to South Africa (see References, page 36). It focuses on immersion and transitional ESL and French immersion programmes in Canada, and bilingual programmes elsewhere, e.g. the U.S.A., Eastern Europe and Asia, in terms of the possible implications of all these for a future South African language education dispensation.

Adult ESL Programs in Chicago

title of this article could better have been listed as The Education of Hyman Kaplan Revisited because, as I carried out research for the paper, I found that parallels between adult ESL programs in this metropolitan area and the fictional American Night Preparatory School for Adults kept coming to my attention. I learned that Leo Rosten's very entertaining stories of immigrants learning English were actually drawn from his experiences in teaching English as a second language in Chicago, although the locale was changed to New York in the stories.

Teaching in Spanish to the Spanish Speaking

ABSTRACT: Juan Gonzalez and his wife, both about forty years old, and their six children represent the typical Mexican immigrant family of the Southwest. They came to San Diego County in the summer of 1966 and Mr. Gonzalez found work as a gardener. If his occupational status was to improve and his children were to take advantage of America's guaranteed opportunities, their educational opportunities must improve. Prior to this time, very few school districts had made specialized commitments that would make this change possible. Through an ESEA Title III project—English As a Second Language Demonstration Project, established in 1967—teachers were trained, ESL programs implemented, and a link between the school and the Spanish‐speaking home established. Although the Gonzalez family now had a start and were learning English, other needs became apparent and led to the funding of an enlarged project—A Regional Approach: ESL/Bilingual‐Bicultural. Lessons to teach content in Spanish and English, as well as adequate testing instruments to measure English proficiency, are being developed and field tested at the elementary and junior high levels. The Gonzalez children can now expect to achieve success in school and the whole family can be assured a feeling of pride in being Americans with a Mexican heritage.

Organization and Administration of ESL Programs in the Public Schools

Second-language-learning programs, all curriculum innovations for that matter, need to be people-centered, sequential, cooperatively developed, implemented, improved, and supported from the school site to the largest possible audience. We know that the most important item in our inventory is an awareness of what is involved in the teaching-learning process, but we must now reassess our educational purpose. To attain any degree of success in our pursuits, we must see to it that what we do transcends any given discipline. We need to reconsider approaches to our instructional aims and to examine the value of a languagecentered curriculum. In short, we need to provide children with magnetic opportunities for developing in them the abilities to inquire, to solve problems, to see the relatedness of knowledge and the interdependence of people, and to make value analyses. We must recognize that children need to discover for themselves through guided educational experiences the basic concepts and skills they will need to make a better life for themselves in a country that is now seventy-five percent urban and in a world where urbanization is an international watchword.

Attitudes and Motivation: Their Role in Second-Language Acquisition

My intent in this paper is to review some of the research we have conducted which indicates just how dynamic and potent the role of the parent might be in the language-learning situation. I should say at the outset that most of our research has not dealt with ESL programs, but that nonetheless the phenomenon we have observed would seem as relevant to the ESL program as to any other second-language situation. I think it is meaningful to distinguish two roles of the parent which are relevant to his child's success in a second-language program. For want of better labels, I'm going to refer to them as the active and passive roles, even though these labels are not completely descriptive. By the active role, I mean that role whereby the parent actively and consciously encourages the student to lear the language. In the active role, the parent monitors the child's language-learning performance, and to the extent that he plays this role he attempts to promote success. That is, the parent watches over the child and makes sure he does his homework, encourages him to do well, and in general reinforces his successes. I believe it is safe to assume that differences in the extent to which parents vary in this encouragement function would have some influence on the child's performance in any learning situation. The other type of role, the passive role, is more subtle, and I think more important, primarily because the parent would probably be unaware of it. By the subtle role, I mean the attitudes of the parent toward the community whose language the child is learning. These attitudes are important, I believe, because they influence the child's attitudes, and it is my thesis (and I'll try to convince you of its validity) that the child's attitudes toward the other language community are influential in motivating him to acquire the second language. To contrast these roles, let me suggest one possible example. An Englishspeaking parent might actively encourage a child to lear French. He may stress the importance of doing well in that course, and might see that the child does his homework, and so forth. To himself, and to any observer, he might be perceived as actually helping the child. This is the active role. This same parent might hold positive or negative attitudes toward the French community. To the extent that he holds negative attitudes, he may be undermining his active role, by transferring to the child negative

Linguistics or Literature: An Approach to Language

The question of literature is a vital one for ESL teaching since literature is the most expressive function of a language-yet its position in an ESL program has never been adequately defined because such consideration reaches into the most fundamental assumptions of language and language teaching, and we have too often accepted such fundamentals as received data and concentrated our thought and time on methods-the hows rather than the whys of TESOL teaching practice. The intention of these two papers is not to be specifically practical. We do not offer a convenient methodology of tricks and techniques for classroom problems-our aims are more general: to dwell upon the fundamental concepts of the language/literature dichotomy which we have created to plague ourselves. The recognition of this division and its effects must be the elements which precede more immediate, more practical classroom needs-though I hope we shall pave the way for these, too.

Literature and the ESL Program*

The Modern Language JournalVolume 48, Issue 8 p. 489-493 Literature and the ESL Program* Charles T. Scott, Charles T. Scott University of WisconsinSearch for more papers by this author Charles T. Scott, Charles T. Scott University of WisconsinSearch for more papers by this author First published: December 1964 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1964.tb04539.x † A slightly different version of this paper was presented in San Francisco in November, 1963, at the Convention of the National Council of Teachers of English. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume48, Issue8December 1964Pages 489-493 RelatedInformation