CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

The objective of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of non-native speakers of English enrolled in Freshman Composition, including International Nonnative Speakers of English (INNS)[1] and Resident Nonnative Speakers of English (RNNS)[2], with the latter group consisting of citizens, resident aliens, and undocumented immigrants who grew up speaking a language other than English at home.    This study examines the experiences of both of these groups in learning English, coming to the university, and making their way through freshman composition.  The design of the study is largely case-study in nature, but also includes a quantitative comparison of student characteristics gathered during the first stage of the study.  Finally, a major goal of this study is to provide concrete pedagogical implications, including suggestions regarding placement, curriculum design, classroom teaching, and student support.

The research for this study took place over a two-year period and consisted of multiple stages, following the recommendations of Dell Hymes (1982):  comprehensive and then topic/hypothesis-oriented[3].  In the Comprehensive Stage (henceforth referred to as Stage I), which took place during the first year of the study, I examined the freshman composition setting overall, “conducting a broad spectrum of observations, with a mapping of the site, census taking, and interviewing” (Watson-Gegeo, 1988, p. 584).  This stage included a language background survey of all sections of freshman composition at the university—approximately 5,500 students in 278 sections. Based on the findings of this survey, a number of students representing a broad range of first-language backgrounds were chosen for further study, as described in Chapter 3 of this study. 

In the Topic/Hypothesis-oriented stage (henceforth referred to as Stage II), which took place in the second year of the study, the focus of the research was narrowed to focus on international and resident native speakers of Spanish.  This decision was made due to the predominance of native speakers of Spanish in the group being examined, as documented in Stage I.  This should not be surprising given that the university at which the research took place is located approximately an hour drive from the United States-Mexico border, in an area of the Southwest where Spanish-speakers are a demographically important part of the population.  Further details of this stage may be found in Chapter 3. 

 

Statement of the Problem

In 1980, there were approximately 312,000 international students attending institutions of higher learning here in the U.S., with the vast majority of these students being international nonnative speakers of English (INNS).  This number had increased to about 400,000 students by 1990 and to 515,000 international students in 2000 (Education, 2001).  This trend has occurred at the University of Arizona as well, where the international student population increased from 2,045 individuals representing 112 countries in 1991 to 2,635 students from 130 different countries in 2000 (Arizona, 2001).

Students from this segment of our academic population have often been examined in terms of their demographic characteristics, placement in university courses (Braine, 1993, 1994, 1996; Cai, 1993; Harklau, 1994; Hillenbrand, 1994; Kroll, 2001; Leki, 1992; Silva, 1994, 1997; Williams, 1995), and a number of writing issues, including the planning they do before writing (Harris & Silva, 1993; Silva, 1993), their revisions after receiving feedback (Ferris, 1999; Harris & Silva, 1993; Matsuda, 1998; Silva, 1993),  and the assessment of their final products (Byrd & Nelson, 1995; Ferris & Hedgcock, 1998; Hamp-Lyons, 2001; Hamp-Lyons & Kroll, 2001; Hillenbrand, 1994; Leki, 1992; Lipp, 1995; Matsuda et al., 2001; Silva & Kei, 2001).  There has also been extensive discussion of the appropriate curriculum design and classroom methodology for these students (Agnew, 1994; Allen, 1994; Atkinson & Ramanathan, 1995; Belcher & Braine, 1995; Braine, 1996; Canagarajah, 1993; Celce-Murcia, 2001; Cheung, 1984; Dong, 1999; Friedlander, 1990; Holmes & Moulton, 1994; Janopoulos, 1995; Joe, 2000; Kasper, 1998; Larsen-Freeman, 1986; Lay, 1995; Leki, 1992; Raimes, 1983; Richards & Rodgers, 2001; Silva, 1997; Zamel, 1976).

INNS, however, are actually only a small percentage of the nonnative speakers of English attending colleges and universities in the United States.  A larger group, as mentioned earlier, consists of citizens, resident aliens, and undocumented immigrants who grew up speaking a language other than English at home.  This group will be referred to as Resident Nonnative Speakers of English (RNNS) in this project.  As will be demonstrated in Chapter 2, these students are different in important ways from INNS.  Some of them are recent immigrants who speak Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Urdu, or one of a host of other languages.  In the present study, this includes a student who emigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam at the age of five with his parents and siblings, who were monolingual Vietnamese.  This student grew up speaking only Vietnamese at home and may have had other Vietnamese-speaking children as friends, but was also exposed to English in the neighborhood and on the television.  This group also includes a girl who came to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of twelve.  She had studied English for two years in Mexico and, upon her arrival to the United States, was abruptly immersed into the public school system. 

RNNS also include students who were born and raised in the U.S.  This group includes a student from the Navajo reservation who grew up speaking her native language with her grandparents, who largely spoke Navajo, and with her parents, who were bilingual Navajo/English.  Another student in this group is a native speaker of Spanish who was born in Wenatchee, Washington to parents who were migrant laborers, but who moved back to Mexico at the age of two months.  This student’s parents settled just across the border of Arizona in Nogales, Sonora and later moved across the border to Nogales, Arizona just before he began school.  Although a native-born U.S. citizen, he spoke only Spanish at home, saw Spanish in the stores and newspapers, and spoke only Spanish to his childhood friends.

Unfortunately, RNNS have been largely ignored until recently in terms of academic research. This may be partially due to the fact that “U.S. colleges and universities collect virtually no information about U.S. residents’ or citizens’ native language status” (Harklau, Siegal, & Losey, 1999, p. 2).  Due to this lack of information about RNNS, it is common for them to be placed in mainstream sections of college composition, “with mixed results” (Ramanathan & Atkinson, 1999, p. 46).  Given that nearly forty-seven million Americans (17.9% of the population) speak a language other than English at home (insert citation-U.S. census data) and that these students now “form a significant percentage of the U.S. undergraduate population” (Braine, 1996, p. 91), it is crucial that more research be done about them.  As discussed above, it is not surprising that native speakers of Spanish form the largest component of nonnative English speakers in the United States, accounting for 10.7 percent of the U.S. population, with over twenty-eight million speaking Spanish at home.  This trend is even more pronounced in border states, such as California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.  In Arizona, for example, 19.5 percent of the population (over 900,000 people) speaks Spanish at home (U.S. Census, 2001).

This demographic carries over into our universities.  Indeed, my own current research into this issue found only nine sections (out of a total of 264) of Freshman Composition for Native Speakers of English is of a total of 250) at the University of Arizona during the fall semester of 2000 that contained solely native speakers (NS) of English (see Appendix One for a detailed description of these courses).  While some of these classes contained only a single nonnative speaker (NNS) of English, the average number was approximately three (out of a possible 25), with two courses consisting of 9 NNS and 14 NS of English.  In the mainstream sections of English (English 101), the vast majority of these nonnative speakers, as might be expected, are immigrants or the children of immigrants and are native speakers of Spanish.  Very few of the nonnative speakers in these sections were international.

Given these findings, it is important for our composition program here at The University of Arizona, and for others around the nation, to understand how these RNNS and INNS are similar and/or different in terms of their characteristics, and how RNNS students’ needs may be different from those of their international counterparts.  My exploration of these issues will help to illustrate the similarities and differences between these groups and provide insight as to how the needs of both of these groups might be better met in the future.

 

CCCC Statement on Second-Language Writing and Writers

ESL writing has certainly advanced since the days of Teddy Roosevelt when the San Francisco Chronicle printed an editorial which denied “either the legal or moral obligation to teach any foreigner to read or speak the English language” (Agnew, 1994, p. 4).  However, it was not until 2001 that the Conference on College Composition and Communication, in recognition of the “growing number of second-language writers in institutions of higher education across North America,” devised an official statement on second-language writing and writers (Matsuda et al., 2001, p. 669).  Part one of the Statement, excerpted below and reproduced in its entirety in Appendix Two, serves as the guiding principle for this dissertation:     

Second-language writers include international visa students, refugees, and permanent residents as well as naturalized and native-born citizens of the United States and Canada.  Many of them have grown up speaking languages other than English at home, in their communities, and in schools; others began to acquire English at a very young age and have used it alongside their native language. To many, English may be the third, fourth or fifth language.  Many second-language writers are highly literate in their first language, while others have never learned to write in their mother tongue.  Some are even native speakers of languages without a written form....

For these reasons, we urge writing teachers and writing program administrators to recognize the regular presence of second-language writers in writing classes, to understand their characteristics, and to develop instructional and administrative practices that are sensitive to their linguistic and cultural needs.  We also urge graduate programs in writing-related fields to offer courses in second-language writing theory, research, and instruction in order to prepare writing teachers and scholars for working with a college student population that is increasingly diverse both linguistically and culturally.  (Matsuda et al., 2001, pp. 669-670)

 

As mentioned in the Statement, ESL writers are a quickly increasing and incredibly diverse group in terms of linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds.  Adequately meeting their needs will be one of the great challenges for U.S. colleges and universities in the foreseeable future, requiring a great deal of future research as well as curriculum adaptation.  It is my hope that this dissertation will contribute to that process.

 

Objective of the Research

            The objective of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of non-native speakers of English enrolled in Freshman Composition.  As discussed above, this includes the student groups commonly identified as International (INNS) and Resident Nonnative Speakers of English (RNNS).  This study examines the experiences of both of these groups in learning English, coming to the university, and making their way through freshman composition.  It will do so primarily via qualitative methodology, largely case-study in nature, in conjunction with a quantitative comparison of the demographic characteristics of these students.  Finally, a major goal of this study is to provide concrete pedagogical implications, including suggestions regarding placement, curriculum design, classroom teaching, and student support.

 

Research Questions

The goals of this project are to look at non-native speaker students enrolled in Freshman Composition at the University of Arizona in order to determine:

1. The nature of the NNS population in freshman composition.
2. How the international and resident NNS student in freshman composition are similar and/or different.
3. What the needs of these groups are in relation to their success in the freshman writing program and in the university as a whole.
4. Whether the needs of the students in those sections are being met.
5. What instructional resources are available to meet these students’ needs and the level of their appropriateness. 

In Stage I of the research, the first two questions will be addressed for the overall NNS population at the university.  In Stage II, all five questions will be addressed, with a focus on the Latino population at the university. 

 

Significance of the Study

This project may benefit all non-native speakers, and especially native speakers of Spanish, at the University of Arizona by determining what, exactly, the characteristics of this group are, the extent to which their needs are currently being met, and how their needs might be better met in the future. 

This study will fill a gap in the current research as it will better reflect the full diversity of the ESL programs in this country.  Stage I of the study provides a more complete picture of the diversity of non-natives speakers present at the University of Arizona, while Stage II gives a focused examination of an important group of students in the nation: native speakers of Spanish.  The present study will provide a general overview that reflects the diversity of non-native speakers of English in the U.S., while also giving a detailed examination of speakers of a specific language- Spanish.

 

Limitations of the Study

There are two primary limitations for this study.  First, the findings presented in this study may not be generalized to all settings for teaching writing in ESL since those findings are based on a limited sample of students and, at least in the case of Stage II of the research, they represent only one first language—Spanish.  However, the findings from the first stage of the research should be applicable to similar settings—large multiethnic universities across the U.S.  The second stage attempts to provide an in-depth investigation of a single group rather than skimming the surface of a much larger sample in a choice of depth over breadth of investigation.  It is hoped that this type of an in-depth examination will be the impetus for future large scale research on the topic.  While the findings from the second stage of the research do focus on native speakers of Spanish, the growing importance of this group—the largest group of NNS in the U.S.—means that the findings are applicable to a number of other settings as well, particularly in states such as California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, where Spanish speakers form a significant percentage of the population. 

The second limitation of this study pertains to its primarily qualitative nature, which relies heavily on interviews.  As an outsider, neither a student nor a native speaker of Spanish, I am concerned that the participants in the study may have either given me the answers they believed a teacher would want to hear, or that they would hold back information from an outsider.  However, the triangulation of data from a combination of extensive interviews with a number of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as information gathered through classroom observations and writing samples should help to mitigate such factors.

 

Definitions of Terms

            In order to avoid ambiguity, key vocabulary terms utilized in this work are listed below.  While there is a great deal of scholarly debate regarding precise definitions of these terms, it is not my purpose in this study to create their “defining definition.”  Rather, these are working definitions for the purpose of this study alone.  

 

Native Speaker—a person for whom a particular language is their ‘first language’ or

‘mother tongue.’  This implies that the speaker of the language acquired it naturally during childhood.  In some cases, bilingual individuals may be native speakers of two (or more) languages.  For the purpose of this study, the term native speaker (NS) will usually refer to a native speaker of English.

Nonnative Speaker—a person for whom a particular language is not their ‘mother

tongue.’  This often implies that the speaker learned the language in a more formal school setting.  It may also be the case, however, that the language was simply acquired later in childhood than the speaker’s first language.  A number of the non-native speakers (NNS) in this study had achieved a “native-like” command of English.    

English as a Second Language (ESL) Learner—refers to someone who is a nonnative

speaker of English; see nonnative speaker.

International Nonnative Speaker (INNS)—refers to a student studying in the U.S. whose

first language is not English and who is not a citizen or resident (either legal or

undocumented) of the U.S. 

Resident Nonnative Speaker (RNNS)—refers to a student who is a citizen, resident, or

undocumented immigrant in the U.S. for whom English is not the first language. 

This, for example, could include a student who was born in the U.S. but who grew

up speaking Spanish.  

Case Study—research designed to examine the complexity of a single case.  Case studies

are naturalistic and usually longitudinal in nature. As discussed by Johnson, the “unit of analysis (i.e., the case) might ... be a teacher, a classroom, a school, an agency, an institution, or a community” (1992, p. 76).  In this study, the case is nonnative speakers of English in freshman composition.  By performing an in-depth examination over an extended period of time, case study research seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the single case.    

Process Approach—an approach to teaching writing that focuses on the writing process

rather than only the final product.  In the process approach to writing, students are expected to write multiple drafts of a paper and make changes in their paper based on the feedback they receive.

Latino/a[4]—a male or female of Latin American heritage.  This may include individuals

 who are monolingual Spanish, bilingual Spanish/English, or monolingual English (or a variety of other combinations involving other languages).  

 

Structure of the Dissertation

            This dissertation consists of 6 chapters.  Chapter 1 describes the background of the study and provides a discussion of the purpose and significance of the dissertation.  Chapter 2 reviews the state of teaching ESL writing in the U.S., including the history of English as a Second Language (ESL) writing, characteristics of the writing of International and Resident ESL students, and an overview of the placement options available to these students.  Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the study, including the recruiting of and description of participants, data collection procedures, and data analysis.  Chapter 4 presents the results of Stage I of the study.  Chapter 5 presents the results of Stage II of the study, which focused on Latino students in the freshman composition program.  Chapter 6 discusses the findings of both stages with reference to previous research on the topic and also discusses the limitations of the study and its pedagogical implications.

 

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