Exploring the Positive Relationship Between Speaking and Reading Skills in English Language Learners

¶ … Positive Relationship Between Speaking & Reading Skills in ESOL Students

Relationship Between ESOL Learner's Reading & Language Skills

Exploring the Positive Relationship Between Speaking & Reading Skills

In ESOL Students

This study explores the speaking skills of ESOL students and relates it to their ability to read in English. This study attempts to determine how and to what degree speaking skills affect the reading abilities of ESOL students in both positive and negative ways. It demonstrates that a growth in conversation skills in the English language is positively related to an increase in the reading abilities of ESOL students. The hypothesis is that reading and speaking skills are interrelated and that there is a positive relationship. The methodology behind the study is based on surveys of ESOL teachers, ten parents of ESOL students, and the comparison of two groups of ESOL 6th grade learners. The students will be divided into two groups based on whether they use their original languages in the classroom or not. The population is selected through convenience sampling. This study, I hope, will reveal a positive relationship between the amount of time ESOL learners use English in the classroom and their proficiency to read aloud in English.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract 2

table of contents 3

Problem Statement 4

Research Question 4

Goals of the study 4

importance of the study 5

literature review 5

role and bias of the teacher 8

Proposed research design 9

Sampling Techniques 9

Participants 10

Data Collection Methods 10

Data Collection Instruments 11

Research Procedure 13

Data Analysis 14

Constraints 14

References 15

Problem statement

There are two problems which this study attempts to address. Firstly, this study is concerned with how the English speaking abilities of ESOL students impacts their reading abilities. And secondly, this study is concerned with the impact of the rate at which an ESOL student uses English on his or her overall English language development.

Research Question

The primary research question is:

To what degree is an increase in the time that English is spoken in both the classroom and school related to an improvement in reading skills? In one sentence this study hopes to explore whether ESOL students, who primarily converse in the English language while using L1 only for support, posess better reading skills, than those who only use their native language (L1) in the classrooms.

Goals of the study

The goals of this study are to identify precisely how English speaking skills in ESOL students are related to and impact their ability to read in English. This study attempts to identify a positive relationship between both the first variable-that of how often ESOL students use their English speaking skills, and the second variable- that of how well they read in English. This study hopes to show that an increase in the use of conversational English in ESOL students will result in an improvement in ESOL student's reading abilities. This study hopes to make recommendations to ESOL staff regarding limiting the amount of time ESOL use their native languages in the classroom.

Importance of the study

This study will have significant importance for all ESOL teachers and teachers who exclusively teach reading to students of other languages. It will also yield importance for parents, as they work towards improving the reading patterns of their children at homes. This study will allow the educators to contemplate on the speaking skills of ESOL students, as they attempt to enhance their conversation abilities to speak in the English language. Through this study, teachers will appear more cognizant and informed of the positive effects, of conversing primarily in the English language, while only using L1 for support on an on need bases. Also, when foreign students are put into a habit of conversing primarily in the English Language, a strong positive relationship between speaking and reading follows.

Literature review

The present trend in Education, has given much importance to the study of English as a Second Language (ESOL). This is due to the present overwhelming increase in the ESOL student population at both public and private schools in America. The increase in ESOL student population complied with the 2002 NCLB mandates, have pushed each school to meet the new testing demands in English for speakers of other languages. This poses a huge challenge for reading teachers, who possess an equal responsibility to help ESOL students obtain grade level fluency in reading. Thus, the study of English as a second language has become a topic of much controversial debate, and scholarly discussion, in the field of education.

According to (Hinkel, 2006) there have been various factors that have augmented together and have in turn impacted the way that English is taught. There is an overall decline of any particular method of teaching with experiments being done. Yet another study states that listening, as a tool has historically been important as a way of communicating and learning the language. This augments with the fact that while English is being spoken more and more publicly, there are listeners, who are also absorbing the nuances of the language and in turn tend to learn better. (Richards, 2008 ) In this study listening and speaking are considered two sides of a coin where speech is listened to and listeners are hearing what someone speaks.

While there is a dearth of literature available that has the same objective and problem statement as our study, (Lesaux & Siege, 2003 ) indicate that in a longitudinal study of bilingual children, it was noted that early reading skills are not affected by children knowing two languages and there were some dimensions where the ESOL students performed better than their native language counterparts. This study reveals the importance of early intervention, where children, when taught can be good at all languages that they know given that reading is taught through phonics which is about letter sounds rather than names, so that speech and read material are better aligned, making the synaptic connections for children stronger, enabling better learning.