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The educational path of an English-language learner in California is affected by federal, state, and local educational policy, mandates, and practices. According to the research, after 40 or so years of government intervention from the Bilingual Act of 1974 to Proposition 38 of 2016, school districts continue to have large numbers of English-language learners. School districts also produce Long Term English Learners as high school graduates who not only face deficiencies in language acquisition in both primary and secondary languages, but are also academically unprepared for the real world. This study was conducted to determine intrinsic family and school academic influences of English-language learners who have graduated in one California comprehensive high school in Northern California. The researcher, a former English-language learner (ELL), shared his story of growing up as a product of bilingual public education during the seventies and eighties to a selected number of graduating English-language learner recent high school graduates. A survey of 21 questions regarding the influences of English-language learners was given to 17 participants. The participants were interviewed in a focus group format and then documented their own stories as English-language learners. The results indicate several common themes that K-12 education is in need of addressing to ensure academic success of English-language learners. These themes include: English Language Learners having a wealth of knowledge, culture, language, experiences, and unique voices that educators can “hook” the student into short and long term high school education. In addition, educators need to understand how to teach the ELL’s invaluable mind, which will require some creativity on the part of educators in addition to teaching the preexisting curriculum. However, challenging this approach may be, it will undoubtedly maximize student interest, learning, and language acquisition. |
