Date of Award
8-1-1987
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Keywords
age, beginning level, bilingual counselors, bilingual orientation classes, borough of manhattan community college, chinese, comparative analysis, country of origin, demographic survey, design, english, english as a second language, esl, fall 1982, fall 1986, french creole, gender, group oral survey, instructors, instructional materials, language transfer problems, native language, percentages, program registration, recommendations, results, selection, spanish, students, survey instrument, united states, women, working status, years
Abstract
A demographic survey was conducted of English as a Second Language (ESL) students registered in the ESL program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College in fall 1986. The results of the survey were compared with a similar demographic survey conducted in the ESL program in fall 1982. The survey covered country of origin, native language, gender, years in the United States, age, and working status of the students' registration in the ESL program.
All of the ESL instructors surveyed the ESL students in their sections using a group oral survey instrument. One thousand seventy students were surveyed, eighty-nine percent of the students registered in the ESL program for fall 1986. The survey responses were recorded and converted into percentages and then compared to the results from the 1982 survey.
Spanish continued to be the language spoken by the largest group of students. French Creole was second and Chinese third. The percentage of French Creole speakers had almost doubled since 1982, while the percentages of Spanish speakers and Chinese speakers had decreased slightly. 69% of the students were women, and this percentage was even higher in the beginning level classes.
Recommendations were made of the selection and design of instructional materials and for the study of language transfer problems relating to French Creole and English. It was further recommended that the college hire bilingual counselors and that some bilingual orientation classes be offered for beginning level Spanish speakers. Finally, recommendations were made for further studies based upon the results of this study.