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COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF PHILADELPHIA

A Profile of Fall 1997 ESL Students

OFFICE OF INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH Report # 101


Prepared by Huizhen Ren & Jane Grosset

April 1998

Introduction The English as a second Language (ESL) Programs and Services provide students of limited English proficiency with the opportunity to improve their English language skills so that they will succeed in their chosen College curricula. Three types of courses, listening/speaking, reading, and writing, are offered to students based on the results from the College Placement Test. There are three levels of listening/speaking and four levels of reading and writing courses. At the lower level of these courses, learning lab course are required to provide additional academic support to students. While working on English skills, students can take mathematics courses and other bridge content courses based on their academic needs and English proficiency. Bridge content courses are college credit courses specially reserved for ESL students. In these courses students can begin exploring academic interests in a sheltered environment with teachers and classmates from similar backgrounds. (A list of the sequences of the English and the bridge courses is included in the Appendix for reference.) A wide range of academic support services is offered to assist students in their academic efforts. These services include: new student orientation and mid-semester orientation, faculty mentoring program, counseling, learning lab course and tutoring, academic advising, and career and transfer workshops. In 1991, the College conducted a survey of ESL students who attended in the spring and fall 1991 semesters. Since it has been seven years since this survey, it was important to determine if the profile of current ESL students was the same as that of their predecessors. If the profile has changed, what are the implications of these changes for the present array of courses and support services provided to ESL students?

This report describes a project that was undertaken in the spring 1997 semester that was designed to provide insight about the characteristics of ESL students today. The English as a Second Language Programs and Services received a grant from the Community College of Philadelphia Foundation to design a computerized New ESL Student Goal Statement and Data Form. The purpose of this form was to create a data collection mechanism to gather basic information about ESL students such as their ethnic, linguistic and educational backgrounds and their academic goals. With the help of the College's Office of Institutional Research, the Testing Center and the Computer Center, the project was completed in fall 1997. The New ESL Student Goal Statement and Data Form was given to ESL students enrolled in the Fall 1997 semester. Thanks to the assistance of ESL faculty, 710 forms were returned, which represented 78% of the total ESL enrollments for that semester. The ESL student profile provided by this recent survey was compared with the information gathered from the similar survey conducted by the Office of Institutional Research in the fall and spring of 1991. It is anticipated that information from this comparison will give the college community updated information about our ESL students which can be used to develop effective recruitment and retention strategies, appropriate curricula, support services and program activities to help students reach their academic and career goals. Student Profile The information that is used to describe ESL students enrolled at the College during the Fall 1997 semester was gathered from the institutional data base and a survey of ESL students. Information from the former data source is based on all ESL students

enrolled during fall 1997 (866) while the survey information is based on only those students who completed usable questionnaires (710). A copy of the questionnaire appears in the Appendix. A similar survey of ESL students was undertaken during the Spring 1991 and Fall 1991 terms1 and while information from the 1997 survey of ESL students is the principle focus of analysis in this report, the information about ESL student enrolled during earlier semesters is referenced throughout this section of the report when appropriate. There were 1091 respondents to the 1991 survey. Over half (58.3%) of the 866 ESL students in fall 1997 were women. The age profile for these students was as follows: 58.6% were between the ages of 18 and 25; 25.5% were aged 26 to 35; 11% were between 36 and 45 years; and 5% were 46 years and older. Only 17% of the 710 ESL survey respondents were not working at the time they were surveyed while 30.6% were working full-time and 52.8% were employed in a part-time job. The majority of 1997 ESL students (44%) were planning to eventually transfer elsewhere (Table 1). Twenty-nine percent planned to find a new job related to their college studies and another 4% planned to continue working at their present job after finishing their course work at the College. At the time they were surveyed, a fairly large percentage (18.5%) of ESL students were undecided about their post-community college plans.

A summary of the information gathered from the 1991 survey appears in Institutional Research Report #61, titled 'A Profile of Spring 1991 and Fall 1991 Bilingual/ESL Students at CCP'.

Table 1 What do you plan to do after you graduate or finish your courses at the College?* Plans Transfer to a four-year college Find a new job related to studies Undecided Continue working at present job Return to native country Other plans % 43.9 29.1 18.5 3.9 1.8 2.6

* Question 7 from the New ESL Student Goal Statement and Data Form

The numbers of students enrolled in credit ESL courses were comparable in fall 1997 and in both the spring and fall of 1991 (Table 2). ESL enrollments grew continuously throughout the first half of the 1990s and steadily decreased over the last three years. Fall 1997 figures represent a return to 1991 enrollment levels.

Table 2 Number of Students Enrolled in ESL Courses Term Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Spring Fall Year 1990 1991 1991 1992 1992 1993 1993 1994 1994 1995 1995 1996 1996 1997 1997 # of Students 829 900 1024 1006 1082 1136 1252 1250 1305 1142 1114 1080 1066 992 930

Since 1991 there has been a shift in the geographic origin of ESL students at the College. While Vietnam remains the country of origin for most of our students, there has been a slight increase in the level of Chinese and Indian students presently enrolled at the College and a decline in the representation of other Asian countries, including Korea and Cambodia (Table 3). The most dramatic shift has been the decline in the percentage of students from the former Soviet Union. To a lesser extent, there was also a decrease in the percentage of students from Puerto Rico. Recently, there has been an increase in the percentages of students from Africa, Europe, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Middle East. Table 3 Where are you from?* Location Fall 1997 N=716 % 250. 9.0 8.0 8.0 7.8 7.4 6.4 6.4 5.3 4.6 2.1 2.1 2.1 2.1 1.5 1.0 0.3 Spring and Fall 1991 N=1063 % 23.1 10.8 3.9 6.8 5.7 4.9 5.3 17.1 3.4 0.8 4.5 6.8 4.5 0.8 0.3 1.4 0

Vietnam Puerto Rico Africa China India Europe South America Former Soviet Union Haiti Dominican Republic Cambodia Korea Other Asian Countries The Middle East Central America Philippines North America other than United States

* Question 3 from the ESL Student Goal Statement and Data Form

Given the diversity of homelands reported by ESL students, it is not surprising that there were over 37 native languages cited by survey respondents. The geographical shifting between 1991 and 1997 that is represented in Table 3 is reflected in the shifts in native language over this time frame (Table 4). Vietnamese and Spanish were cited by nearly half of the 1997 ESL students, representing an increase from 1991. Fewer students in 1997 indicated that Russian, Cambodian/Khmer, Korean, or English were their native languages. Table 4 What is your native language?* Language Fall 1997 N=683 % 23.7 22.8 11.0 8.2 6.7 4.8 2.9 2.6 2.6 2.3 2.0 1.8 1.6 1.0 0.6 0.6 0.4 4.4 Spring and Fall 1991 N=1091 % 19.0 18.0 9.6 15.7 5.0 3.6 1.6 4.1 1.3 0.5 0.0 2.2 6.6 0.7 0.2 0.5 2.2 9.2

Vietnamese Spanish Chinese Russian/Ukrainian French/Creole Malayalam Arabic Cambodian/Khmer Gujarati Amharic Albanian Polish Korean Tagalog Thai Urdu English Other

* Question 4 from the ESL Student Goal Statement and Data Form

Current ESL students appear to be more degree-oriented than ESL students in the past. When asked for their main reason for attending the College, 56% of the 710 students in 1997 indicated they were interested in earning a degree at the community

college; an additional 37% were planning to earn a degree elsewhere; and only 7% had no degree intentions and enrolled solely to improve their English. While the wording of this question on the earlier survey was slightly different, the profile of ESL students at the beginning of the decade indicates that fewer were degree oriented (38%) and more enrolled with the exclusive intention of improving their English skills (50%). Current ESL students are arriving at the College less well-prepared than their predecessors. While fewer than 6% of the ESL students who were surveyed in 1991 were non-high school graduates, 11% of the 1997 ESL students reported they had no graduated from high school (Table 5). ESL students today were also more likely than their predecessors to have graduated from a high school in the United States rather than a foreign high school. Table 5 Where did you attend high school? Location of High School Fall 1997 N=826 % 33.5 32.7 11.2 15.9 Spring and Fall 1991 N=1080 % 17.0 64.5 5.7 N/A

Graduated from US high school Graduated from foreign high school Non-high school graduate Unknown

Discussion Comparisons of ESL students across time indicates there are several differences in the profile of current students. This information should be used to reexamine the curricula and services to determine if they are effective in meeting the needs of today's ESL students. The following questions serve as a starting point for this discussion.

1. What is the reason for the growth of ESL enrollments in the first part of the decade and the enrollment decreases over the last three years? The answer to this question will significantly impact our strategic planning for future programs and services. 2. The survey of 1997 indicates a shift in the geographic origin of ESL students at the College. Does this change have implications for future recruitment strategies? 3. Does the decline in the percentage of students from the former Soviet Union represent a decrease in the number of immigrants from that area of the world to Philadelphia or are there simply fewer Russian immigrants choosing to attend the College? If the latter is true, why? 4. There are more ESL students who graduated from a US high school now than six years ago. What are the major differences in the academic preparation of US high school graduates and those of foreign high schools? What are the implications of these differences for our current curricula and support services? 5. Current ESL students are more degree oriented than students from six years ago. Are the current support services and curriculum available to ESL students still adequate in assisting them in their efforts to succeed in achieving their educational objectives?

Appendix
Sequence of ESL English Courses
Introductory Level English 067, 068, 069, 070 The above courses must be taken together Listening/Speaking English 071 Listening Speaking English 072 Listening Speaking English 078 Pronunciation Reading English 081 Reading English 082 Reading English 083 Reading Writing English 091 Writing English 092 Writing English 093 Writing English 098 Writing English 089 Reading English 101 English 073 Listening Speaking

Bridge Courses Available For ESL Students At Different English Levels: Biology 106, Chemistry 110, Chemistry 121, Data Processing 101, Data Processing 103, Math 016, Math 017, HIT 105, Office Administration Courses, History 103, Political Science 111, Psychology 101, Sociology 101, Spanish for Native Speakers (SNS) Courses, Span 201, 202, 301, 308, 309, Music 103.

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