First Advisor

Kimberley Brown

Term of Graduation

Summer 2000

Date of Publication

9-18-2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

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

Department

Applied Linguistics

Language

English

Subjects

Hispanic American students -- Attitudes, Hispanic American students -- Education, English language -- Study and teaching -- Spanish speakers

Physical Description

1 online resource (v, 107 pages)

Abstract

As the population of Mexican immigrant learners continues to increase in the Northwest, an understanding of the cultural, social and psychological realities of these students' lives becomes an ever more important issue for professional language educators, classroom teachers, and school administrators. Our understanding of the needs of these learners will have an important effect on how prepared they are to participate in academic situations and community life.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between language attitudes and ESL learning among young adult Mexican-immigrant learners in one community education program in the Northwest. Learners' values and beliefs about the status of English and Spanish in the United States were investigated. Connections between culture, attitudes and academic success were explored through data collected by means of a survey instrument.

Thirty Mexican and Mexican-American students from the ages of fifteen to twenty-one were the subjects of this study. These participants were at risk teens and young adult students in an alternative learning program in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area.

Statistically significant findings of this study included a difference between the mean ranks of male and female students on one Likert-scale question. This item asked about participants' language choices when communicating within a community context.

Statistically significant correlations were found as well. These included twelve different correlations between various items (age, current grade, months in the US, months in the country of origin, time in US schools, time in schools in the country of origin and academic achievement) and responses to Likert-scale questions. Likert-scale data reflected students perceptions of the vitality of the Spanish language, the utility of Spanish versus English and the role of language in classroom settings in the United States.

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