Language Acquisition in English Language Learners: ELL Research

Introduction: Immigration and the ELL Challenge

The United States is a country of immigrants and has been since its inception. However, until relatively recently, immigration did not pose a significant problem for the U.S. educational system because of the rigid cultural and social expectations placed on newcomers. New immigrants were expected to assimilate aspects of American culture — especially speaking English — as quickly as possible. Schools were not responsible for teaching a new language to immigrant children; on the contrary, these students were expected to learn in English even if they had no prior knowledge of the language. The task of English acquisition was often left to members of individual immigrant communities. Non-English speakers were frequently delegated to the bottom ranks of their classes, and, having started behind, rarely escaped those ranks during their educational careers. Other non-English-speaking students came from families where English acquisition was a shared family effort. When the majority of immigrants were already English speakers, such a system seemed fair and workable — school systems were not overwhelmed with English Language Learners (ELL), and within three generations an immigrant family would typically achieve full English proficiency.

Such a system is simply no longer sufficient. "Nearly one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English, according to new census data that illustrate the wide-ranging effects of immigration. The number of immigrants nationwide reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country." (Associated Press, 2007).

Moreover, today's immigrant population differs from previous generations. Immigration to America has progressed in a series of waves. The first immigrants were largely from Western Europe, and many spoke English or another Romance language as their first language. Following World War II, many immigrants came from Eastern Europe, had more diverse ethnic backgrounds, and spoke languages largely unfamiliar to most Americans. Within the last several decades, however, immigration has taken a different turn. The overwhelming majority of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, now hail from Mexico, Central America, and South America. Most are native Spanish speakers who share some cultural similarities. There has also been a growing number of immigrants from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East — resulting in an ever-expanding ELL student population with a diversity of ethnic and cultural backgrounds that is unprecedented in American history.

Ethnic diversity impacts education in a variety of ways. Different cultures place different degrees of emphasis on education and educational attainment:

"In most states, immigrants have added to the number of those lacking a high-school diploma, with almost half of those from Latin America falling into that category. However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are raising average education levels in many states, with nearly half of them holding at least a bachelor's degree." (Associated Press, 2007).

While there is an upward trend in all immigrant families, the educational background of parents can have a tremendous impact on an ELL student's ability to acquire English. Parents who hold advanced degrees and compete in English-speaking workplaces may provide additional motivation for school-aged children to become proficient in English.

This study looks at two broad groups to understand the relationship between culture and language acquisition. The first group comprises Spanish-speaking ELL students — immigrants from Mexico and various Central and South American countries — who frequently move into established Spanish-speaking communities where there is little need to use English outside school or work. Spanish is the most studied second language in America, and Spanish-speaking students form the vast majority of those targeted by most ELL programs. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the study also examines Arab immigrants to the United States. Arab culture is less familiar to most Americans, and many Americans hold misconceptions about Arab culture, religion, and language. In a post-9/11 world, many people are hostile toward Arab cultural life. A large influx of immigrants from Afghanistan and Iraq means that many Arab children need to learn English quickly. However, traditional ELL programs may be less equipped to serve these students, given the cultural distance between America and most Arab countries and the fundamental structural differences between Arabic and English.

The problem statement guiding this research is: Do ELL students acquire English faster if placed in a bilingual kindergarten rather than being introduced to English in a later elementary class? The purpose of this study is to determine the best grade at which to initiate English language instruction for ELL elementary students, and to examine the impact that native language — specifically Spanish and Arabic — has on the acquisition of English as a second language.

The practical significance is that ELL programs may ideally need to be tailored to individual groups of students, with speakers of different native languages beginning ELL instruction at different ages and in different ways. Unfortunately, very little prior research has concentrated on the relationship between a student's primary language and that language's impact, if any, on the student's ability to acquire English.

Linguistic Differences Between Spanish, Arabic, and English

To determine the best instructional approach, it is essential to understand the structural differences between English and the two target native languages. Spanish is a Romance language that uses the Latin alphabet, like English. Beginning Spanish-speaking students may make mistakes with English vowels a, e, and i, and consonants such as h, j, r, and y may cause difficulty because they have significantly different names in Spanish. The English writing system itself causes no particular problems for Spanish learners. Beginners, however, may be tempted to add inverted punctuation to questions or exclamations, as is done in Spanish, and may struggle with English quotation marks, which are not used in Spanish (Shoebottom, 2007, Spanish).

It would, however, be a gross oversimplification to assume that because they share a common background, English and Spanish are somehow interchangeable. Spanish sounds different from English in terms of vowel sounds, sentence stress, and timing (Shoebottom, 2007, Spanish). Spanish speakers can also encounter grammar problems when learning English: "although Spanish is a much more heavily inflected language than English, there are many aspects of verb grammar that are similar. The major problem for the Spanish learner is that there is no one-to-one correspondence in the use of the tenses. So, for example, a Spanish learner might incorrectly use a simple tense instead of a progressive or a future one." (Shoebottom, 2007, Spanish). Because these issues reflect basic differences between the two languages, progressive learning in Spanish does not automatically translate to improved English ability.

There are several areas of vocabulary overlap between Spanish and English, and the close historical relationships between Mexico and the American Southwest and between Cuba and Florida have led to the integration of some Mexican and Cuban words into American English. However, this overlap does not guarantee success. "Since the Latin-derived words in English tend to be more formal, the Spanish student will benefit when reading academic text. He or she may sound too formal, however, if using such words in everyday spoken English. Conversely, phrasal verbs, which are an essential aspect of colloquial English, are difficult for Spanish learners and may obstruct listening comprehension." (Shoebottom, 2007, Spanish). Spanish is also a highly phonetic language, with a strong correspondence between the sound of a word and its spelling. The irregularity of English in this respect causes predictable problems. Spanish learners often reduce English double letters to a single one, or overcompensate by doubling a letter unnecessarily (Shoebottom, 2007, Spanish).

In direct contrast, Arabic is very different from English in structure, alphabet, and literacy system:

"Arabic is from the Semitic language family; hence its grammar is very different from English. There is a large potential for errors of interference when Arab learners produce written or spoken English. Arabic has a three-consonant root as its basis. All words are formed by combining the three-root consonants with fixed vowel patterns and, sometimes, an affix. Arab learners may be confused by the lack of patterns in English that would allow them to distinguish nouns from verbs or adjectives." (Shoebottom, 2007, Arabic).

Additionally, "Arabic has 28 consonants (English 24) and 8 vowels/diphthongs (English 22). Short vowels are unimportant in Arabic and do not appear in writing. Texts are read from right to left and written in a cursive script. No distinction is made between upper and lower case, and the rules for punctuation are much looser than in English. These fundamental differences between the Arabic and English writing systems cause Arab learners significant problems. They usually need much more time to read or write than their English-learning peers from Indo-European language families." (Shoebottom, 2007, Arabic).

Furthermore, several significant cultural differences between Arab and American societies may also impact learning. Research has shown that the success of ELL programs is more highly correlated with the teacher-student relationship than with a teacher's proficiency in a student's native language. ELL teachers therefore need to learn enough about Arabic culture to establish working relationships with students from that background — a challenging task for teachers who carry the same cultural biases as other members of society. Teachers working with Latino students face similar challenges, though the stereotypes differ. In fact, negative stereotypes surrounding native Spanish speakers — such as beliefs that they are lazy or unmotivated — may be particularly detrimental to the formation of positive student-teacher relationships.

Stages of Second Language Acquisition

When young children learn language, they generally do so sequentially rather than simultaneously (Gonzalez, 2005). They typically establish proficiency in one language and then transfer the skills acquired in that language to the learning of a second. Researchers believe that English language learning should be additive: "meaning that the new language should expand the child's overall linguistic capabilities. While the new language is being learned, the home language should be maintained — the ultimate goal is bilingualism. In fact, research indicates that having a strong foundation in the home language is an advantage while a child is learning a second language." (Gonzalez, 2005). When taught in this manner, skills learned in each language enhance learning in the other, increasing overall literacy in both the first and second languages.

There are real similarities between first and second language acquisition. Because "the process of first language acquisition is basically the same in all languages" (Gonzalez, 2005), it stands to reason that second language acquisition follows a similarly uniform process. Educators, parents, and caregivers can encourage language acquisition for both first and subsequent languages by talking frequently with children, especially about activities and objects at hand; listening to a child's communicative intent without focusing on the correctness of their language; encouraging children to talk; and satisfying a child's curiosity about the world (Gonzalez, 2005).

Understanding the different stages of second language acquisition is essential for determining the best age for second language instruction. There are four stages: (1) home language use, (2) nonverbal period, (3) telegraphic and formulaic speech, and (4) productive language (Gonzalez, 2005).

In the first stage, students continue to use their home languages and often appear oblivious to the new language, because much of what adults and other children say is inaccessible to them (Gonzalez, 2005). However, this continued use of the home language does not mean children are not learning. As they are exposed to English, they become aware that another language exists and begin passive learning — absorbing patterns of speech, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical rules. Teachers should strive to include all children in every activity, use concrete props and movement-based activities, talk continuously about what children are seeing and doing, and learn a few phrases in the child's home language to ensure involvement and check comprehension (Gonzalez, 2005).

In the nonverbal period, children realize they are not being understood when using their home languages and resort to nonverbal communication. The length of this period varies depending on the child's personality and the characteristics of the particular setting (Gonzalez, 2005). The telegraphic and formulaic speech stage is marked by the use of individual words or short phrases; these early attempts at English should be encouraged without insisting on flawlessness (Gonzalez, 2005). The fourth stage, productive language, is marked by a child speaking English relatively well (Gonzalez, 2005). It is at this stage that most schools would cease classifying a student as an ELL learner and mainstream them into English-only classes, though language-related barriers can persist long after basic proficiency is achieved.

A critical additional benefit of early English exposure is that students transfer knowledge and concepts learned in their primary language to their secondary language (Yandian & Jones, 2002). Much of language is about communication skills which, once established, remain constant across languages — assuming the student possesses the vocabulary and grammatical knowledge to deploy them. Literary concepts such as reading direction and sentence delineation also transfer across languages that share those conventions (Yandian & Jones, 2002).