Research situation for English language learners (ELLs) in ENGL 1101 through the administration of surveys to students.
From this research, we may create a project to provide additional ELL support to ENGL 1101 faculty and/or students.
The original plan in the Momentum report stated that “The project lead will meet with faculty to create a plan. This could involve the creation of a specific committee.” A committee has since formed and includes four total faculty from the Department of English, including the project lead.
At this point, KPIs would need to be created, and the project lead will collaborate with the Office of Academic Affairs to create them given that the project is in the “Studying” phase.
The committee has designed a survey for students in ENGL 1101 and ENGL 1102. The purpose of the survey is to gauge all students’ knowledge about tutoring resources on campus and the topics with which they would like extra help, English language skills being one of the possible responses. The survey will be administered the first or second week of November.
In Fall 2023, I began asking faculty to send me a count of students who could benefit from tutoring due to language issues (ranging from basic grammar errors to problems with vocabulary to phrasing, speaking in English).
In Fall 2023, faculty reported 62 students, and in Spring 2024, they reported 27 students. This fall (Fall 2024), faculty have reported that 31 students are struggling with a variety of language struggles. In Fall 2023 and Spring 2024, I emailed faculty early in the semester, and their numbers are based on work completed in the first month of classes. I sent out a call for the numbers in September this year, and I have been getting updated numbers after students had completed a couple of essays.
For Spring 2025, I plan to reach out to faculty to send me the number of students who are struggling in mid-February, which is along the same timeline as last year. Now that I have a survey put together, I will ask faculty to have the students complete the survey the first two weeks of the semester.
I will ask faculty to have the students complete the survey the first two weeks of the semester. I will also ask them to make sure students are aware of the tutoring service provided in the Writing Lab and Peer Tutoring, including bilingual tutoring. The Writing Lab Coordinator, Dr. Wei Cen, also has experience teaching ELL students, and I will brainstorm ideas to help ELLs with her. I will contact Nancy Avila de Welles, Dalton State’s non-clinical case manager/social worker, for any information that English faculty could handout to students.
I will also put together a questionnaire for faculty. I would like to their input on the types of resources that would be helpful for them.
Challenges:
- Communication. When professors submit Academic Alerts for ELL students (and for any student), no follow up information is provided to the professor. There could be numerous reasons for this, such as Advisors having too many advisees and not enough time and resources to follow up with faculty. Also, I need to communicate more with Peer Tutoring about the number of bilingual tutors available and then communicate that to faculty and students. (This is not a challenge, per se, simply a step that needs to become routine.)
- Budget and Buy-in. The Department of English should have a specific faculty member (or two) to create in-house resources and support for students and to work with Peer Education to support students. While Dr. Cen does have some experience with teaching ELLs, she is the Writing Lab Coordinator and thus has multiple responsibilities. I have tried to schedule sections (taught by Dr. Cen) of 0999/1101 for ELLs in the past, but enrollment was lacking and the sections were open to all students. A reason for lack of enrollment could be students not wanting to identify as ELL.
Support Needed:
Funding. The Department could also use funds to provide professional development to professors who regularly teach learning support courses and ENGL 1101.
We could also use an ELL coordinator who is specifically trained to help students struggling to write (and sometimes read and/or speak) in English. This individual could create resources within the department and coordinate with other departments, such as Peer Tutoring and the Dean of Students Office. Given that Dalton State is a Hispanic Serving Institution and welcomes students from numerous countries, speaking different languages, support for students whose first language is not English should be a given priority.
Kennesaw State has an English Language Program via its Writing Center (English Language Program - Writing Center) as well as an Intensive English Program (Intensive English Program – Community and Professional Education). While Dalton State is not as large as KSU, these types of programs could help all students (and as KSU advertises, faculty and staff, too). Anecdotally, I have been told of students who leave DSC to take English language courses off-campus because the college does not provide this type of Education. Perhaps this is something that could run through the Department of Communication, Performing Arts, and Foreign Language in conjunction with the Department of English. This would, of course, necessitate funding to hire the appropriate amount of qualified faculty.
