Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners in Co-Requisite Courses at Community College

Does Developmental Education Reform Help or Hinder the Success of Language Minority Students? An Exploration by Language Minority, ESOL, and Foreign-Born Status

“…Some researchers have questioned whether LM studentsparticularly those still developing English language proficiencycan succeed in accelerated developmental education programs that disrupt the sequential content delivery of traditional developmental courses (Avni and Finn 2021). Yet our study suggests that Florida's developmental education reform has tended to help rather than hinder LM students.…”

“…A study among California community colleges found that many EL students didn't understand that they could opt out of ESL testing and coursework (Bunch and Endris 2012), and these types of information deficits can limit the effectiveness of policy reforms that provide students with more choice. Second, community college instructors often have little to no preparation for working with EL students so it may be important for colleges to offer training to developmental instructors on how to teach literacy to underprepared students with different needs (Avni and Finn 2021;Perin and Holschuh 2019). This could include modeling common practices in K-12 such as having credible local instructors provide individual coaching rather than bringing in outside experts for short-term presentations (Perin and Holschuh 2019).…”

“…However, there is also concern that these types of reform efforts may inadvertently disadvantage LM students who are not yet fully proficient in English. Avni and Finn (2021) conducted a qualitative analysis of pedagogical practices for EL students mainstreamed into a college-level course with a concurrent corequisite ESL writing course, which was the highest course that students needed to complete before entering introductory college-level English. They found that many instructors indicated there were not enough opportunities for language instruction on topics like mechanics, grammar, and sentence structure.…”

Linguistically Responsive Instruction in Corequisite Courses at Community Colleges

“…Because an increasing number of ESL classes are converted into corequisite models and students are encouraged to move through their studies at a faster pace, greater emphasis will need to be placed on training faculty to approaches that best address the highly diverse linguistic needs of their students. However, the notion of acceleration at community colleges takes on multiple meanings (Avni & Finn, 2020; Finn & Avni, 2021). On the surface, it refers to a faster and more efficient way for community college students to complete their coursework and graduate.…”

“…Despite the large number of ELs currently enrolled in community colleges and their projected growth (Community College Consortium for Immigrant Education, 2015), the TESOL scholarly community has widely overlooked this critical context (for exception see Avni & Finn, 2017, 2020; Bunch, Schlaman, Lang, & Kenner, 2020; Kasper, Babbitt, Mlynarczyk, Brinton, & Rosenthal, 1999; Kibler, Bunch, & Endris, 2011; Siegal & Gilliland, 2021), resulting in a situation in which we know too little about ESL‐teaching practices at community colleges. This gap is particularly concerning given the sweeping reform efforts community colleges are undertaking to reduce or eliminate developmental courses in reading, writing, and ESL, which are seen as gatekeeping courses, in order to accelerate course credit completion and increase graduation rates.…”