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Learning English for Academic Purposes (LEAP)
Purpose
During the last several decades, almost no campus in the country has been immune to the influx of students who are less prepared for college work than faculty would like them to be. Faced with the problem of presenting college-level material to students who may have difficulty reading the text, many instructors simply give lower grades, sometimes causing the institution to lose the very students it recruited.
Other faculty may react by lowering their expectations and awarding college credit for work that belongs, at best, in high school. They are in turn accused of compromising standards and ultimately harming students by leaving them unprepared for life and work.
The discrepancy between the faculty's expectations and the students' abilities becomes acute at institutions where college-ready freshmen are the exception rather than the norm. California State University, Los Angeles, is one of these institutions: 25 percent of its students enter as "special admissions." Seventy percent of freshmen are non-native English speakers, and 82 percent place in developmental English.
Project LEAP was conceived as a partnership between faculty and supplemental instruction staff to teach academic language skills and improve performance of high risk language-minority students in general education courses. This would be achieved by integrating instruction in content and in academic literacy.
Specifically, the project sought to address the needs of international students who had studied English in their countries, recent immigrants who had been exposed to English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction in high school, and English-dominant bilingual students with poor academic literacy.
Innovative Features
The project emerged out of two decades of campus experience with study groups formed in the Supplemental Instruction (SI) model, with the distinction that whereas traditional SI includes students with varied skill levels, at California State University, Los Angeles, the groups-led by advanced, specially trained students-include only high-risk students.
During three years, Project LEAP trained faculty to improve nine existing general education courses with special techniques intended to help students to master academic English and improve their performance. The courses were supplemented by study groups with the same goals.
The courses selected for language enhancement had a history of presenting conceptual and linguistic challenges for language-minority students. Each course revision was carried out by a team consisting of a faculty member, a peer study group leader, and a language specialist experienced in using course content as a vehicle for language learning. The teams focused on techniques for improving course lectures and making the textbook accessible. The teams taught students how to assemble information, write essays and papers, and prepare for exams. They also encouraged students to become actively involved in learning.
The team revised three courses each year. In the fall, course teams participated in a quarter-long seminar on the theory and practice of second language acquisition. In the winter, the enhanced courses and study groups were offered. In the spring, the course teams documented and evaluated their work, and the annual training manual was compiled. During the winter term when the LEAP courses were offered, the teams met weekly, and all three teams met together at the beginning and then again at the end of the quarter. The study group leader and the language specialist attended all course lectures-a departure from traditional SI procedure, in which the SI leader attends lectures but has minimal interaction with the course instructor.
Evaluation and Project Impact
Project staff compared the final grades of 128 students in LEAP courses who participated in study groups with the grades of their 432 peers in LEAP courses who did not attend study groups. Study group participants earned an average course grade of 2.64, as opposed to 2.56 for nonparticipants. In six out of the nine LEAP courses, study group participants obtained grades equal to or higher than those of nonparticipants, and fewer Ds, Fs, and Incompletes. This is especially significant given that 55 percent of the study group participants were special admissions students, versus only 38 percent of the nonparticipants. Both groups had similar winter to fall retention rates.
Staff also compared the summary writing skills of students in study groups with those of college-ready students in regular courses. Study group participants outperformed more experienced college-ready students in a summary writing exercise. Despite some grumbling about the length of the study group sessions, students in LEAP courses felt that the experience had been helpful, particularly in the areas of reading, writing, and note taking. They unanimously said they would recommend the Project LEAP courses to their friends.
Lessons Learned
In the course of the project, staff found that the approaches to academic English introduced for language-minority students were useful for all students who were unprepared for college, regardless of language background. Furthermore, the lecture enhancements did not impede the learning of college-ready students, but improved their classroom experience as well. Project staff also discovered that it is important for the quality of both courses and study groups to have the members of the team-faculty, students in charge of study groups, and language specialists-become true partners. Staff identified another beneficial strategy-that of mixing international students, who typically have good study skills and high literacy but poor oral and aural English skills, and early immigrant and native bilingual students, who usually communicate well but have poor academic skills.
Instruction which integrates language and content has powerful benefits for language-minority students who lack academic literacy skills. When this responsibility is shared across the disciplines, these students can acquire necessary academic skills and build positive expectations for future academic study, even while course rigor is maintained.
Project Continuation
All the original faculty participants who are still at the university continue to teach the enhanced general education courses and have incorporated LEAP principles into their other courses. These principles have been adopted by all study groups offered at the institution, a total of 15 to 20 groups per quarter. Faculty development workshops continue to disseminate Project LEAP to additional campus faculty, with particular emphasis on new faculty and their mentors.
Dissemination and Recognition
Project LEAP faculty have presented their experiences at conferences in their own disciplines and co-presented with ESL colleagues both at the state and national levels. Several have had articles describing their course enhancements accepted for publication in such discipline-specific journals as The History Teacher and Advances in Physiology Education. Others have applied Project LEAP principles to newly identified areas of need, such as the training of graduate student laboratory instructors and the creation of instructional enhancements suitable for large lecture classes. More than 60 faculty members across the campus who teach lower- and upper-division courses in a variety of disciplines have adopted the multi-step writing assignment. And in several departments, experience and interest in teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students has become a key hiring criterion.
Hundreds of copies of the training manuals and instructional videos have been distributed to faculty across the nation. In 1994 Project LEAP received another grant from FIPSE to train faculty at California State University campuses and nationwide to integrate language and content instruction across the disciplines and continue dissemination efforts.
Available Information
Further information may be requested from:
Ann Snow
School of Education
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032
Telephone: 323-343-4373
or
Janet Tricamo
Student Services
Highline Community College
Post Office Box 98000
Des Moines, WA 98198
Telephone: 206-878-3710
[V. General Education] [Table of Contents] [College of William and Mary]
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