This article speaks to the positive impact of educational
technologies, library digital resources, and internet websites on native
Spanish speakers’ English language acquisition in an undergraduate
three-credit course taught with Spanish-language assistance during the
first college semester. The course selected, Intercultural Communication
(Comunicación Intercultural) is a 300-level course in the Camino
Program that presents theories in anthropology, sociology,
religion, psychology, history, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies.
Spanish-language assistance was provided throughout the course so that
bilinguals understood the content. As they became comfortable in college, their use of English increased, raising self-awareness with
respect to their own learning, which improved self-efficacy and
self-confidence.
Information technology enhanced second language acquisition and
the learning of academics in a pleasant environment that supported
learners’ native language. Students used technological innovations to
manage time and schedules, develop organizational skills, and
self-discipline themselves in adhering to regular and consistent study
routines. This article presents teaching English as a new language,
embedded in a college course with Spanish-language assistance, as an
organic process engaging students in learning academic content, gaining
professional knowledge, and developing life skills as well as enriching
their linguistic repertoire in English and cultivating sophisticated
multiple literacy skills in educational disciplines
Background: The Camino Program
The Camino Program was launched in the Fall 2017 semester in
the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Manhattan College,
Riverdale, New York, USA. The program serves as a bridge between
secondary school and college. Its mission has been to support native
Spanish-speaking undergraduate students as they improve their English
and earn college credits toward an associate’s degree in general
studies. As students recognize their own successful learning, their
“self-efficacy” increases, and they envision themselves as college
graduates pursuing professional careers (American Psychological
Association, 2017). In this article, the terms students, learners, and bilinguals are used interchangeably and
synonymously.
Educational technologies, library digital resources, and
internet websites were integrated throughout the course to facilitate
using English—cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) and basic
interpersonal communicative skills (BICS)—in a comfortable, supportive
environment (Cummins, 1979; Schütz, 2007). Like most multilinguals,
Camino learners’ diverse educational backgrounds varied greatly in using
specialized academic language. This type of language variation is known
as disciplinary literacy, accessing prior knowledge from a wide gamut
of resources—including people, expertise, projects, challenges, inquiry,
scholarly investigations, communities, and fieldwork—to build new
knowledge across academic subjects and professions (Achugar &
Carpenter, 2014, p. 61). Though secondary education often employs the
terms BICS and CALP, it also introduces learners to disciplinary
literacy in preparation for higher education
Student Population
Camino students were Spanish speakers with limited English
proficiency. The standardized test, Accuplacer,
was administered to monitor students’ progress in English. The first
cohort consisted of nine Spanish speakers from the Dominican Republic,
Peru, Cuba, and Mexico. Similar to bilinguals’ disciplinary literacy,
their CALP and BICS ranged from “entering (beginning) and emerging (low
intermediate) to transitioning (intermediate)”(New York State Education
Department, n.d.).
Educational Technologies, Library Digital Resources, and Internet Websites
Because Manhattan College is a “Google” school, it uses the
Google academic suite (G Suite), providing Camino students with
cloud-based information technology for online collaborating and
web-based communicating, including the college webmail (Gmail), Google
Docs, Google Slides, Google Hangouts, and Google Drive. Students
reserved texting for peers but utilized webmail to send formal messages
to faculty. Bilinguals also composed and sent professional emails to
campus departments to gather information on cocurricular
events.
During reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities,
bilinguals used Google Translate. Mobile phones were convenient for
finding the meanings of words in online dictionaries and thesauri.
Students watched YouTube videos as well as videos from the library’s
streaming video database, Kanopy. For research, bilinguals searched
Wikipedia and the Library of Congress Digital Collections. Two academic style manuals—Modern Language
Association and the American Psychological
Association—were scaffolded into lessons with online
tutorials, YouTube videos, and PDF handouts (posted in Google Drive).
Learners practiced using online citation creators such as Knight
Cite, Citation
Machine, and EasyBib. During tutoring,
students practiced ways to avoid plagiarizing and patch-writing by
following prompts and sentence formulas.
Even though they were not comfortable speaking individually in
whole class share, bilinguals frequently appreciated working in pairs on
presentations in Google Slides or PowerPoint. Because students were
motivated to use presentation software, lessons were customized to
afford them opportunities to give short oral reports based on readings.
As they collaborated on assignments, learners increasingly spoke and
presented in English—important skills in college and future professions.
Using presentation software inherently facilitated students’ use of
English as they enthusiastically introduced their partners, raising
self-efficacy and self-esteem. Collaborating, sharing, and presenting
organically improved learners’ oral linguistic repertoire, enriching
disciplinary literacy.
As the semester progressed, learners recognized that they were
speaking English more fluidly as well as learning more content. Using
Google Chromebooks in the classroom and/or the computers in the library
labs, students created presentations based on information from multiple
sources. They engaged in inquiry-based thinking, synthesizing concepts
from sources and formulating their own opinions.
A visit to the college library and technology commons
introduced bilinguals to various resources available to the campus
community. Students used faxes, photocopiers, scanners, and printers.
One lesson included watching the movie Rabbit-Proof
Fence in the library’s multimedia room. Students felt
impressed that they were in a theater-type room with an instructional
computer station, projector, and DVD player. Bilinguals enthusiastically
shared ideas about the film’s tenets, connecting them to the textbook’s
theories. They also used the instructional technology, developing
academic and professional presentation skills. As they accomplished more
academically and linguistically, learners’ self-efficacy and
self-confidence increased.
Although they began to take ownership of their own learning,
Camino students still lacked self-discipline, time-management
strategies, and organizational skills. The Center for Academic Success
held a workshop on time-management and organizational skills. Students
used Google Calendar to plan time for studying, completing assignments,
library visits, and so on. Eventually, learners used mobile phones—for
example, using calendar apps and creating study alerts—for improving
time management and organization. Not only did bilinguals discover that
these skills were an immediate asset, they also realized that they would
be important in their professional and personal endeavors.
In the library, students located course reserves by searching
the online catalog for the textbook. Library computer labs afforded
learners the opportunity to use Microsoft Office—Word and
PowerPoint—whereas Google Chromebooks limited them to
the Google suite. Because they comingled with
traditional students in the library, bilinguals felt as though they were
“real” Manhattan College students rather than being separated as the
Camino cohort. They used library group study rooms with a Google
Jamboard for practicing presentations.
To supplement internet sources, YouTube, and Google Images,
learners attended a library workshop to learn how to search databases
such as Google Scholar, Proquest Central, Proquest Newspapers, Ebscohost
Academic Search Premier, and Opposing Viewpoints in Context. They
created folders, sent full-text articles to themselves via database
email apps, and copied and pasted citations into Google Docs. They used
Kanopy—an online library streaming video database—to save clips for
assignments. Just as they learned to create in-text and reference
citations for text sources, so too did Camino bilinguals become adept in
creating both citation types for digitized materials.
Conclusion
Though Camino learners were confronted with many challenges in
their first college semester, numerous technological innovations
facilitated their becoming more fluent in English as they learned
academic content and fortified disciplinary literacy. These successes
increased self-efficacy and self-esteem so that they could envision
graduating from college and embarking on careers. Students developed
confidence in the ability to direct their “motivation, behavior, and
social environment” (American Psychological Association, 2017). As
educational and information technologies engaged them in self-directed
learning, bilinguals recognized their own abilities to be academically,
linguistically, and professionally successful.
References
Achugar, M., & Carpenter, B. D. (2014). Tracking
movement toward academic language in multilingual classrooms. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 14, 60–71. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap
.2013.12.002
American Psychological Association. (2017). Teaching tip sheet:
Self-efficacy. Retrieved from
http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/education/self-efficacy.aspx
Cummins, J. (1979). Cognitive/academic language proficiency,
linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other
matters. Working Papers on
Bilingualism, 19, 121–129.
New York State Education Department: Office of Bilingual
Education and World Languages. (n.d.). A guide for parents of English
language learners in New York State. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nysed.gov/common/nysed/files
/programs/bilingual-ed/guideforparentsofellsinnysenglish.pdf
Schütz, R. (2007). Stephen Krashen's theory of second language
acquisition. English made in Brazil. Retrieved from https://apps.esc1.net
/ProfessionalDevelopment/uploads/WKDocs/58121/2.%20Stephen
%20Krashen.pdf
Bernadette M.
López-Fitzsimmons is special faculty for
the Camino Program and associate librarian at Manhattan College,
Riverdale, New York. She taught Intercultural Communication, embedding
bilingual information literacy lessons in the course, and has presented
on TESOL at local and national conferences. She delivered a presentation
on cross-cultural communication at the New
York Library Association Annual (NYLA) conference
2017 and was subsequently invited by Academic
and Research Libraries-New York (ACRL-NY)
and the Library
Association of the City University of New
York (LaCUNY) to speak at a professional
development event. |