Identifying the Supports and Challenges of High School Latino English Language Learners

Two out of three English Language Learners (ELLs) graduate from secondary schools nationwide. Of the nearly five million ELLs in public schools, more than 70% of these students’ first language is Spanish. In order to understand and resolve this phenomena and in an effort to increase the number of graduates, this research examined what high school Latino ELLs identified as the major external and internal factors that support or challenge them on the graduation pathway. The study utilized a 32 quantitative and qualitative question student survey, as well as student focus groups. Both the survey and the focus groups were conducted in English and Spanish. The questions considered the following factors: 1) value of education; 2) expectations in achieving their long-term goals; 3) current education levels; 4) expectations before coming to the United States; 5) family obligations; and 6) future aspirations. The survey was administered to 159 Latino ELLs enrolled in grades 9-12. Research took place at three high schools that provide English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes in a large school system in the Mid-Atlantic region. The three schools involved in the study have more than 1,500 ELLs. Two of the schools had large ESOL instructional programs, and one school had a comparatively smaller ESOL program. The majority of students surveyed were from El Salvador (72%) and Guatemala (12.6%). Using Qualtrics, an independent facilitator and a bilingual translator administered the online survey tool to the students during their ESOL classes. Two weeks later, the researcher hosted three follow-up focus groups, totaling 37 students from those students who took the survey. Each focus group was conducted at the three schools by the lead researcher and the translator. The purpose of the focus group was to obtain deeper insight on how secondary age Latino ELLs defined success in school, what they identified to be their support factors, and how previous and present experiences helped or hindered their goals. From the research findings, ten recommendations range from suggested policy updates to cross-cultural/equity training for students and staff; they were developed, stemming from the findings and what the students identified.

The role of musical aptitude in the pronunciation of English vowels among Polish learners of English

It has long been held that people who have musical training or talent acquire L2 pronunciation more successfully than those that do not. Indeed, there have been empirical studies to support this hypothesis (Pastuszek-Lipińska 2003, Fonseca-Mora et al. 2011, Zatorre and Baum 2012). However, in many of such studies, musical abilities in subjects were mostly verified through questionnaires rather than tested in a reliable, empirical manner. Therefore, we run three different musical hearing tests, i.e. pitch perception test, musical memory test, and rhythm perception test (Mandell 2009) to measure the actual musical aptitude in our subjects. The main research question is whether a better musical ear correlates with a higher rate of acquisition of English vowels in Polish EFL learners. Our group consists of 40 Polish university students studying English as their major who learn the British pronunciation model during an intense pronunciation course. 10 male and 30 female subjects with mean age of 20.1 were recorded in a recording studio. The procedure comprised spontaneous conversations, reading passages and reading words in isolation. Vowel measurements were conducted in Praat in all three speech styles and several consonantal contexts. The assumption was that participants who performed better in musical tests would produce vowels that are closer to the Southern British English model. We plotted them onto vowel charts and calculated the Euclidean distances. Preliminary results show that there is potential correlation between specific aspects of musical hearing and different elements of pronunciation. The study is a longitudinal project and will encompass two more years, during which we will repeat the recording procedure twice to measure the participants’ progress in mastering the English pronunciation and comparing it with their musical aptitude.