First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Date of Publication

11-8-1996

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Department

Applied Linguistics

Language

English

Subjects

Children of immigrants -- Education -- Oregon -- Portland, Minorities -- Education -- Oregon -- Portland, English language -- Study and teaching -- Oregon -- Portland -- Foreign speakers, Oregon -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects

DOI

10.15760/etd.6949

Physical Description

1 online resource (2, v, 98 pages)

Abstract

Due to the ever growing numbers of immigrants entering this country, school districts are faced with ever greater challenges for educating newly arrived immigrant students. Often these students arrive with little to no English ability and little to no school experience. Several educational program models, including ESL and bilingual education, have been popularized in school districts experiencing immigrant population growth. Recently, a supplemental model, the newcomer center/program, has gained popularity. The newcomer model seeks to educate and nurture newly arrived immigrant students with little to no English ability in the social and school expectations of the United States. Due to difficulties in conducting research and the relative newness of the program, there is a lack of quantitative research on the effectiveness of the newcomer model. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the newcomer program in one city school district by comparing students who had completed the newcomer program to students who had been unable to attend and were instead directly mainstreamed into their regular assigned schools. The study used a questionnaire design in which the mainstream teachers were asked to rate the students using a Likert scale. Students were rated on their social and school adjustment. In addition to comparing students by program model group (newcomer and pre-beginner), statistical analyses were also used to determine any possible differences among gender, language groups and student ages. Although no significant difference was found between the group of students who successfully completed the newcomer program and the group of students who were directly mainstreamed, there were a few significant findings among gender, age and language comparisons.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Comments

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Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/29289

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