Where do English language development and academic skill development meet? If you said “EAP,” you might be wrong. “EAP” is a broad term that encompasses many permutations of what it means to learn English for academic purposes. For example, is it a standalone course where content comes from course book or course materials? Or, is it a language course that is directly linked to a separate content course? The latter seems the natural home to develop academic language and content (including genre) skills, but it is hard to say how popular or common these programs are. Hopefully, that can change. There is some research that points to greater success among students who study in these types of EAP programs. This following study by Song (2006) attempts to add more data to the limited body of research in this area by investigating a Kingsborough Community College (part of the CUNY system).

Background

There has been wide acceptance of pairing language courses with content courses in “content-linked ESL programs”. Past research has found that students in such program typically outperform other ESL students, improving their language in both productive and receptive skills, academic skills, and discipline-specific vocabulary. The positive outcomes in the short-term (one or two semesters of content-linked ESL) have been well-established by research. However, there is little known about the long-term effects of this instruction. There is some research that points to greater success in freshman and sophomore years, and higher rates of transfer to a degree-granting university. Past research from Kingsborough has shown higher GPA and pass rates over a three semester period when compared to students in an ESL-only program. Another report from the college showed that content-linked ESL students in a linked psychology course actually outperformed mainstream students by the end of the semester. The current study sought to examine both short and long-term outcomes.

The Program

The Kingsborough program has a number of options. Below is a basic description of two content-linked courses and example assignments.

Research Study and Main Findings

For the years 1995-1998, data from 385 students who had taken content-linked courses and 385 students who had taken ESL-only courses were initially included (some cases were removed later because students had left the program). Data collected included grades in courses, GPA, ACT scores (ACT is a college entrance exam), and graduation rates. Tests indicated the following significant results:

• Content-linked students were more likely to pass their first ESL courses than ESL-only students
• Content-linked students performed better in subsequent ESL courses
• More content-linked students passed the ACT test
• There were no differences in GPA for credit-bearing English courses once the ACT was passed
• Content-linked students took and earned more credits and were more likely to graduate
• Content-linked students had higher GPAs overall (though the article did not indicate when the GPA was taken [e.g. after one year, two years, at graduation]).

Overall, the authors found:

These findings suggest that the content-linked ESL program achieved its goals of helping ESL students to accelerate academic English skills development, enhancing academic performance, and facilitating academic success. (p. 434)

References

Song, B. (2006). Content-based ESL instruction: Long-term effects and outcomes. English for specific purposes, 25(4), 420-437.

Photo by Ben_Kerckx (Pixabay)

Anthony Schmidt

English language Instructor at University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Anthony Schmidt is editor of ELT Research Bites. He also has his own blog at anthonyteacher.com. Offline, he is a full-time English language instructor in a university IEP program. He is interested in all aspects of applied linguistics, in particular English for Academic Purposes.