| Popis: |
This article reports on a study of the English writing skills of Southeast Asian-American immigrant children in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and in 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade mainstream classes in a public secondary school in St. Paul, MN. Their writing is compared at each level and is also compared to the English writing of Southeast Asian-American immigrant students, international students, and native-speaking undergraduates at the University of Minnesota. All subjects wrote on the same topic, and scores on four writing traits (accuracy, fluency, coherence, and organization) were assigned to each essay. Results show that writing scores for the mainstreamed secondary students were the same at the 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade levels and were the same as the scores of the nonnative university students. Only the native-speaking university students obtained scores which were significantly better. For the public school subjects, a lower age on arrival, a lower grade at entry into the school system, and a higher number of years in the U.S. were all significantly correlated (p = .001) with success in the writing traits measured. Regression analysis indicated that age on arrival was a more important factor than number of years in the U.S. and grade at entry. |
