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While EAP 121 and 131 classes are explicitly designed for
non-native English speaking students, the majority of NNES students never take these classes
at John Jay. Some students arrive with language skills beyond the level of these classes
(although still far from the academic English competency of the average native English speaking
college student); others come as graduate students or transfer students with enough credits
to make them exempt from basic writing classes.
Who are the non-native English speaking students at John Jay College?
Non-native English speaking students at John Jay fall in three
broad categories: recent immigrants, foreign students and long-term U.S. resident language
learners. They take all levels of classes, and if obvious ways of identifying them, such
as a foreign transcript or a marked accent, are not present, they are not easy to recognize.
- Recent immigrants
- newly arrived in this country and have limited oral proficiency in English;
- not a heterogeneous group: their initial English proficiency might be uniformly
low, but - based on socioeconomic factors, first language literacy and prior education
- there are great differences in their projected pace of academic English acquisition.
- Foreign students
- received English language instruction and often attended college in their home countries;
- often less proficient orally than in writing; generally familiar with the academic
environment and have a working knowledge of English syntax and grammar as well as an
understanding of how language works.
- Long-term U.S. resident English language learners (the €invisible' NNES students)
- have lived in the U.S. for 5-7 years or more; o spent years in mainstream classes in
US schools;
- orally proficient, but often speak English as a Second Dialect (ESD);
- have characteristics of both ESD and a first language other than English in their writing.
It is important that we are aware of the existence and the characteristics
of these students. As seen above, some NNES students do not have a foreign transcript or the
heavy accent and frequent errors typically associated with non-native English speakers, but
their academic English language skills are still behind those of the average native English
speaking student. The issues of learning English language learning and developing academic
literacy skills at the same time are complex and require attention across the curriculum from
faculty and support staff alike.
In any given semester, 100 to 150 students are taking EAP classes.
In Fall 2005, 142 students were enrolled in an EAP course, which represents 5.2% of the freshmen
class. This number has been dwindling since 1998 from the high of 9-10% to its current level
of around 5%.
Alternative NNES status indicators, however, suggest that it's
not the number of NNES students entering John Jay that has changed but their profile. They
are more proficient in spoken English, have lived here longer and are frequently not placed
in EAP/ESL classes in college.
In Fall 2005, 22.2% of entering freshmen were foreign-born,
54.9% had foreign-born mothers, and 55.7% claimed that a language other than English was spoken
at home. These numbers have stayed relatively steady in the past five years. What does this
signal? It certainly doesn't mean that 50% of John Jay's freshmen need support services for
second language learners. Not all bilingual students need ESL support in college. The majority
of students growing up in bilingual households are ¯functional bilinguals,² but some are ¯incipient
bilinguals,² who are still in the process of acquiring English language skills, especially
academic English. In order to make sure that these students successfully complete their coursework
and graduate, administration and faculty alike need to be aware of the presence of students
at various stages of acquiring English.
The alternative indicators of NNES status remind us that students
can be Non-Native English Speaking even if they are not enrolled in an EAP class, and while
the number of students enrolled in EAP classes has declined, the number of NNES students entering
John Jay College has not.
Learners who arrive in the United States younger than
12, after at least 2 to 3 years of schooling in their first language, generally reach the
50 percentile on reading and language arts tests after 5 to 8 years. If they arrive older,
as adolescents, they need about 7 to 10 years to achieve equal levels with native speaking
peers as long as their formal first language instruction continues. When they reach college,
these students are frequently identified as NNES and placed in ESL classes.
What might come as a surprise to some, though, is that students
who arrive younger than 6, with no formal schooling in their first language are not expected
to reach the 50 percentile even after 7 to 10 years. In other words, they are permanently
lagging behind, and this becomes most obvious in the upper grades or in college as the cognitive
and academic demands of the curriculum increase.
NNES students who have been educated in the US school system
are often described as Generation 1.5 students - a term that positions their
linguistic and cultural identities on a continuum. They came before they reached school age;
often had interrupted schooling, and frequently are in the process of losing their first language
while still acquiring the second language. They have the oral fluency in English but lack
education in their first language. Formal first language education and literacy play an important
role in the academic success of NNES students because linguistic awareness, cognitive skills
and conceptual knowledge ® all fundamental to academic language proficiency ® can be transferred
from first to second language.
Generation 1.5 students arrive at college with academic and
literacy skills well below the expectations of their professors. In order to provide appropriate
guidance, it is essential that professors recognize the orally proficient NNES students as
learners of academic English. These students often lack the meta-language
necessary to talk about their writing or respond to comments about their writing, and this
requires adjustment of instructional language and teaching methods. At the same time, these
students have no formal knowledge of grammar, so techniques and exercises often used in the
ESL classroom will have to be modified as well.
There is no one mold that fits all NNES students: some will
flourish in the mainstream academic environment, others will need some focused coaching and
scaffolding from professors, and yet others will need frequent visits to language-specific
support services.
Awareness is key in helping NNES students. The resources on
this web-site can help you identify NNES students and provide you some practical tips to be
used in the classroom.
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Non-native
English speaking students usually take EAP 121 or 131 classes at John Jay College.