Equipping Hispanic Immigrants for an Effective Social Integration

1. Equipping Hispanic Immigrants for an Effective Social Integration Ernesto De la Hoz ESL & Foreign Languages Department Miami Dade College Innovations Conference 2012 Philadelphia, PA – March 4-7, 2012

2. Presentation Abstract This session presents the plans for recruitment and retention of immigrant students with strong academic backgrounds and the design of a specialized curriculum created to serve this population. This model has been named Project ACE. Also, the presenters will explain methods of program evaluation used to determine the effectiveness of the model.

3. Agenda • How are you doing? • Title V – Project ACE • Recruitment, Retention and Service Plan • Content-based, Corpus-Informed Instruction • Strategies for curriculum and faculty development

4. Background of Title V-Project ACE • Help students with strong academic backgrounds to learn English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in an efficient and effective way • Increase retention and matriculation rates of EAP students • Enhance collaboration • Disseminate research findings and curricular practices to other campuses and colleges

5. Title V-Project ACE • ACE stands for Accelerated Content-based English Program for EAP (English for Academic Purposes) at Miami Dade College • Year 4 of $1.9 million dollar grant from the US DOE • Two activities • Create accelerated curriculum • Document outcomes

6. Review of the Literature • High level of literacy in L1 predicts ease of learning L2. • Programmatic isolation and unrelated coursework decrease motivation. • Content-based instruction promotes efficient language learning. • Immigration trends indicate need.

7. Profile of Current ACE students

8. Profile of Current ACE students

9. Profile of Current ACE students

10. Profile of Current ACE students

11. Profile of Current ACE students

12. Outreach • Advertisement • Learning how to reach foreign professionals • Liaisons • Consulates • Chambers of Commerce • Professional Associations • School Boards • Community • Restaurants and Bars • Sports leagues

13. Facilitating Access: Stories behind the data Most frequent obstacles to access higher education

14. Facilitating Access: Stories behind the data Document Issues Immigration Status FCAT vs. CPT Job/ Family Schedule Health and family Working 9 to 5 x 2 Financial Issues FAFSA and unemployment status FAFSA and foreign professionals

15. Facilitating Access: Stories behind the data Promo http://prezi.com/5kgacxqbjbm6/project-ace/

16. Retention

17. Content-Based InstructionMore than just a hunch… Cute! Scary! Instruction can no longer be based on mere assumptions. These assumptions must be tested. Corpus work assures that what we are teaching in our “natural reserves” is what is happening out in the “wild.”

18. Content-Based Instruction • What is content-based instruction? • Learning about something, while learning a language • Why used content-based instruction? • Language teaching and learning has no natural content. • Research shows that learning through sustained content helps students by recycling vocabulary and ideas. • Students are better able to expand on the content and negotiate meaning when the context is consistent.

19. Content-Based Instruction • Content-based instruction and EAP are natural partners. • Students are preparing for academic careers. • Teaching language through content gives students repeated exposure to academic topics and language.

20. Corpus-Informed instruction • What is corpus-informed instruction? • Teaching with authentic language selected from a large corpus • Corpus = “body” • Written materials (textbook chapters, syllabi, handouts, web-sites) • Transcriptions of class discourse (lectures , questions , discussion ) • Corpus linguistics • Step 1: Using computers to analyze the “body of materials” • Step 2: Analyzing the results to see language frequency patterns

21. Corpus-Informed instruction • Why use corpus-based instruction? • To design a syllabus based on word frequencies and student needs • To create materials and activities based on real examples of language as it is used in different contexts • To teach students to conduct their own investigations based on specific language needs, purposes, or problems

22. Corpus Collection Process • Conducted from March-June 2009 • Language samples from general education classes • CLP 1006 – Psychology of Personal Effectiveness • HUM 1020 – Humanities • BSC 1005 – General Education Biology • ENC 1101 – Freshman Composition • Survey of general education faculty

23. Sample Corpus Finding How many words are found in the psychology text used in CLP 1006? 200,000

24. Vocabulary Knowledge and Academic Performance • Words matter. • Efficient readers have a vocabulary of at least 20,000 words. • Vocabulary words have their own grammar. • Knowing a word means knowing its meaning and use.

25. Project ACE Spoken Corpus

26. Project ACE spoken corpus 10 most frequent words in the corpus

27. Project ACE spoken corpus 10 most frequent multi-word clusters

28. Project ACE spoken corpus 10 most frequent content words

29. Differences between courses • Humanities and Biology • Lecture format • Not highly interactive • What does this mean for students? • Professors ask questions and often answer themselves. • Key content words are not frequently repeated. • Frequent use of discourse organizers to signal a topic change or important information

30. Differences between courses • Psychology and Freshman Composition • More interactive • Class discussions, group work, presentations • Psychology blends lectures in as well • What does this mean for students? • Stronger need to participate • Be able to answer questions

31. Top 10 content words in ENC 1101

32. Findings: Academic Language in Project ACE written corpus

33. Findings: Academic Language in Project ACE written corpus • For these four courses combined, students are expected to read approximately ____________ words in the semester. • The total of 770,000 is created by the recycling of 29,000 different individual words. • The words ‘the” and “of” make up 10% of all the words in the written materials in ACE.

34. Project ACE written corpus • Some of the 29,000 are used frequently such as life, time, people, art , cells. • Almost half of these 29,000 are used infrequently. • 4,100 words are only used twice, and 10,000 words are used just one time. • Many words come in two or more word sets that have to be learned and used together: self-esteem, at the end of, at the same time

35. Strategies for Learning • Students need to: • have strategies for sorting out the essential from the rest because they are handling 100,000’s of words and phrases. • recognize that some words are in set phrases and that certain set terms are used for basic concepts. • have strategies to handle these different language genres even in a single source such as their textbooks. • know the different names for academic tasks (research paper vs reaction or reflection paper, an online academic journal vs. an online journal entry)

36. Strategies for Teaching • Learning Communities: When possible, couch EAP within a greater Gen Ed context • Performance and task-based instruction: What can they now do? • Technology: Use those tools that will bring language to life • Let’s get real: Use authentic samples and select topics accordingly (traditional grammar lessons vs. corpus-based lessons)

37. Strategies for Managing Change • Provide professional development for faculty and staff • Get innovator buy-in • Support transitions in increments • Plan for replication • Expect backsliding

38. ACE Students in Action

39. Thank you! Ernesto De la Hoz ESL & Foreign Languages Department Miami Dade College edelahoz@mdc.edu