English Language Proficiency and Language Diversity among Immigrant Students

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English Language Proficiency and Language
Diversity among Immigrant Students

• Mariela M. Páez
• Assistant Professor
• Boston College
• Lynch School of Education

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Language Diversity

• Three out four immigrant children in the U.S.
  grow in a home where a language other than
  English is spoken
• One out of seven in a home where no one over age
  14 speaks English

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Research Questions

• What are the English language proficiencies for
  students in each immigrant group?
• How do these students language skills in English
  change over time?
• If you take into account students skills in
  their first language, what are the students
  bilingual verbal abilities?

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Methodology

• Sample of 288 students
• 66 Chinese
• 55 Dominican
• 46 Haitian
• 55 Central American
• 66 Mexican
• Sources of Data (1) structured student
  interviews, (2) parent interviews, (3) a
  communication questionnaire, (4) individually
  administered language assessments
• Two waves of language data (Y3, Y5)

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Measures

• Child Background age, gender, and number of
  years in the US
• Family Backgroundrural/urban origin, parental
  education, and parents English language skills
• Language Measures language exposure and use
  index, and scores in an English language
  proficiency test (Bilingual Verbal Ability Tests)

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English Language Results

• On average, students in the sample had very low
  levels of English language proficiency
• Only 7 of the overall sample got a score that
  was average or above average for their age
• Significant differences were found among the
  immigrant groups

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Implications

• Get to know the students in your classroom
• Learn about students cultural and linguistic
  background. Develop understandings of language
  development. Focus on students as unique
  individuals.

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Home language inventory
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Developmental sequence for Young Children

• Use of the home language in second language
  settings
• Nonverbal period
• Telegraphic and formulaic communication
• Productive language use
• (Tabors, 1997)

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Stages of language acquisition

• Preproduction
• Early Production
• Speech Emergence
• Intermediate Fluency
• Advanced
• (Krashen Terrell, 1983)

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Implications

• 2. Connect the curriculum to students
  experiences and knowledge including their
  cultural and linguistic background
• Respectful, Meaningful, and Relevant

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Examples

• Organize curriculum around relevant and
  meaningful themes (e.g., family and immigrant
  themes)
• Celebrate students first languages and cultures
• Selecting culturally relevant texts and materials
• (Freeman Freeman, 2001)

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Culturally Relevance Rubric(Freeman, 2000)
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Implications

• 3. Teach language along with content
• Make language transparent
• (Professor Maria Estela Brisk)
• Help students develop an understanding of the
  English language (speaking, reading, writing, and
  listening) in the context of all school subjects

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Examples

• Strategies for teaching reading and writing
• Vocabulary connections
• Drawing as prewriting
• Dialogue journals
• (Brisk Harrington, 2000)

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Explicit Training Discussion Framework(Gibbons,
2002)
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Implications

• 4. Use assessments that are appropriate and
  reliable
• Need to consider diversity of students when
  selecting, adapting, and interpreting assessments
  tools or measures

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Conclusions

• Create a Caring Community of Learners
• Students, teachers, homes and communities are
  partners in the learning process

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References

• Brisk, M. E. Harrington, M. M. (2000). Literacy
  and bilingualism. Mahwah, NJ Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates.
• Freeman, D. Freeman, Y. S. (2001). Between
  worlds access to second language acquisition
  (2nd ed). Portsmouth, NH Heinemann.
• Freeman, Y. S. Freeman, D. (2002). Closing the
  achievement gap. Portsmouth, NH Heinemann.
• Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding language,
  scaffolding learning. Portsmouth, NH Heinemann.
• Munoz-Sandoval, A., Cummins, J., Alvarado, C.,
  Ruef, M. (1998). Bilingual Verbal Ability
  Tests. Itasca, IL Riverside Publishing.
• Páez, M. (2005). English language proficiency and
  language diversity among immigrant students.
  Manuscript submitted for publication.
• Tabors, P. (1997). One child two languages.
  Baltimore, MD Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.