English teaching to minor language students

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I am an Early Childhood Education Masters student in the School of Education. What I focus on are the outcomes of different methods of language education in minor language students. As my first language, Chinese, is also not the dominant language, I am interested in the education of students who speaking minor language and I believe that certain language education programs can be beneficial to minor language students in English learning.

Language ability has an independent association with behavior problems and academic achievement in students from ages 7 to 13 years. Students with a high ability of language skills are more likely to get a better academic achievement (Petersen, I., T., & Bates, J., E., et al 2013). However, minority language students have a relative poor English skill compared to majority language students. Because of the general underachievement of minority language students in the U.S, a growing number of programs focus on whether minority language students acquire full proficiency in English and can achieve academically at grade level expectations. How to apply the educational programs to certain group of students is of great importance.

Based on my literature review, Spanish-speaking students are the largest language minority group in the U.S. and there is also a considerable percentage of Korean and Chinese-speaking students (Lindholm-Leary, K., & Genesee, F. 2014). Thus, research should focus on these language groups. I have read a couple of articles that talk about instructional program models available for English learner students such as two-way immersion (TWI) and developmental bilingual education (DBE). In TWI program, two languages are used for instruction, and two groups of students are involved. In DBE program, the aim is to develop and maintain both students' primary language as well as English. The results indicated that minority language students in TWI and DBE programs are as or more likely to be proficient in the dominant societal language (English) (Lindholm-Leary, K., & Genesee, F. 2014).

Therefore, my suggestion to language education teachers is figuring out the dominant language of each student (major or minor language) and divided them into different groups. For the minor language group students, several instructional programs into their curriculums, such as TWI and DBE, should be added to improve their English skills as well as academic achievements.

References

Petersen, I., T., & Bates, J., E, et al. (2013). Language ability predicts the development of behavior problems in children. J Abnorm Psychol. 122(2), 542–557.

Lindholm-Leary, K., & Genesee, F. (2014). Student outcomes in one-way, two-way, and indigenous language immersion education. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language Education 2(2), 165-180.