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From: "Douglas Thompson" <dthompson@pi.ac.ae>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-ESL:8391] Second language proficiency and academic performance
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Dear All
I am part of a research group at a science and engineering institution. Students are studying English as a second language in preparation to enter our degree programme.
Our issue is What is the effect of language proficiency on performance on Core courses (Natural science, maths and computing)?
Anecdotal evidence last year was that this was only a significant issue for Physical Science, which was 'language rich'. There appeared to be much evidence that maths performance, and to a lesser extent computing, were more or less language independent. This year, however, there is contradictory but equally anecdotal evidence being given. It has been proposed that we embark on research in this area.
I reply I received from one person in the field is discouraging. He writes:
"The answer to your question is fairly straight forward. There is little to no relationship between L2 test results and academic performance. There have been only a handful of studies, some of them dating back to the ELTS days by Davis and Criper, which showed correlations of about .3. Institutional TOEFL studies (most not published) show the same. In 1991 Pollitt wrote a paper explaining why this was so. Firstly, it is hard to operationalise either L2 proficiency and/or academic success in a way that allows reliable measurement. Secondly, there is always intervention on the part of language tutors if test scores are low. Thirdly, the sample is always truncated. That is, if the level isn't high enough to get on the course at entry, students don't get in. Without the full range of ability, the correlation is depressed. Some group difference studies were conducted in the 1980s by Sally Magnan, and these were equally inconclusive, other than that there was a general trend for ACTFL scores to increase with length of study - but that was not related to content subjects, only language learning.
This is a thorny problem, and not one that I've spent a lot of time thinking about. What I can tell you is that if you want to investigate this you're going to have to come up with an extremely novel and sensitive research methodology."
I am looking for practioners who may have considered this issue more deeply. We would like to survey any literature that may shed light on this 'thorny problem'.
Douglas Thompson
English Lecturer
Foundation Faculty Resource Co-ordinator
____________________________________________
Petroleum Institute
P.O. Box 2533
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
Tel: + 971-2-5085-225
Mobile: + 971-50-596-7561
Email: dthompson@pi.ac.ae
dthompsonuae@yahoo.co.uk
____________________________________________
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