Expansion of the ESL Materials Collection at the. NOVA Annandale Campus Library

Transcription

1 Expansion of the ESL Materials Collection at the NOVA Annandale Campus Library EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Northern Virginia Community College Annandale Campus Library, Annandale, Virginia, proposes to substantially expand its collection of English as a Second Language (ESL) materials. The community the library serves is home to many immigrants and children of immigrants. Almost 50% of Annandale residents speak at home a language other than English (U.S. Census, 2010). In order to participate fully in the community, these foreign language learners (ELL) must acquire a good command of the English language as spoken in America. They must be able to use the language well, not only to improve their daily lives, but also to pursue successfully their chosen careers. NOVA Community College Annandale Campus is committed to the education of all students who come to them, but especially those who belong to this large community of foreign language learners. In order to assist the college in meeting this goal, we at the Annandale Campus Library seek to build an extensive collection of ESL materials and make them available for circulation. By providing high quality learning materials, Annandale Campus Library will increase the ability of these foreign language students to gain a command of academic English, contribute to their communities and thus lead rewarding and happy lives. To make this goal possible we seek $11,730 to purchase books, CD s and other ESL materials. Page 1 of 11

2 SETTING Northern Virginia Community College Annandale Campus The Northern Virginia Community College - Annandale is a 2-year community college located in Annandale, Virginia, a large suburb of Washington, DC. According to the U.S. Census (2010), 42.5% of Annandale residents speak a language other than English at home. Of these residents, 33.7% are foreign born. Virginia Campos (2010) points out Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) is the most diverse and second largest community college in the nation. NOVA supports students from 180+ countries whose first language, in many cases, is not English (p. 1). It is to this diverse community that NVCC makes a commitment to provide world-class post-secondary teaching, learning, and workforce development to ensure our region and the Commonwealth of Virginia have an educated population and globally competitive workforce (Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment, 2010). The Annandale Campus is the largest of the six campuses in the NVCC system, and therefore serves the majority of foreign students enrolled in the system. Annandale Campus Library The Annandale Campus Library is located on the NOVA Annandale Campus and is the central library in the NOVA library system. It occupies the third floor of the Godwin Building located in the center of campus. Fourteen full-time and two part-time employees consisting of five faculty librarians and nine library specialists make up the staff. The library also employs two student technicians and three work/study students. The Associate Dean for Learning and Technology Resources directs the library. Users of the library include faculty, staff, and students of the NOVA Annandale College along with the surrounding community. Residents of Fairfax County also make use of the library. The Page 2 of 11

3 student body is approximately 20,000 and the library sees between 2,000 and 3,000 users come through their doors every day. Annual circulation is around 40,000 checkouts. To these users the library seeks to promote the general informational, cultural, vocational and recreational needs of the students, staff, and faculty as well as the community as a whole. The library also serves to promote the professional growth and development of the College s faculty and staff (Annandale Campus Library website, 2008). In line with this mission, the library works in conjunction with the NOVA ESL Center to provide educational assistance to the many English Language Learners (ELL) who number almost 50% of the student population. STATEMENT OF NEED NOVA Annandale s strategic vision is to become a more effective gateway to good jobs and higher education for the residents of Annandale, Virginia (Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment, 2010). Since almost half of the residents of this area will struggle with academic success if their English Language skills are nominal, the members of this population will suffer in their quality of life without proper training in English(Campos, 2010). This lack will prevent their ability to participate in society to the fullest, a situation that can lead to marginalization and a lower contentment in life. Studies show that immigrants make up a large and increasing share of the nation s population, and over the next few decades they will constitute a significant portion of the U.S. workforce (Teranishi, Suarez-Orozco, and Suarez- Orozco, 2011, p. 153). As Teranishi et al. (2010) points out, it should be a national priority to increase their educational attainment, economic productivity, and civic engagement (p. 153). Page 3 of 11

4 One factor that makes this goal difficult to attain is the problem of student retention. In fact, Edman (2007) reports on studies which find student retention to be one of the most critical issues facing post-secondary schools. ELL students are particularly vulnerable to this problem since success in learning English is key to success in higher education. When their English skills are lacking, they fall behind in their studies, become discouraged and drop out of class. NOVA Annandale is especially sensitive to this difficulty because of the high percentage of ELL students. As Campos (2010) points out, NOVA currently ranks eighth among community college in the U.S. in terms of the number of international student enrollment (Institute of International Education, 2010a)" (Campos,2010, p. 1-2). Because of this high number of foreign students, improving the quality of ESL learning opportunities will benefit a substantial proportion of the local population. Annandale Campus Library recognizes the importance of assisting these students achieve English proficiency. The library is committed to providing the best ESL materials in the needed quantity in order to enhance English language learning for these students. The library desires to provide materials in different formats and thus give the students varied opportunities to use the language. Studies have shown that a variety of activities and formats of materials enhances the learning of a second language (Duff, 2001, p. 103), (Campos, 2010, p. 7-8). Termed differentiated instruction, this method of teaching a second language integrates "instruction using the four language skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking) [and] allows students to learn the second language more successfully" (Campos, p. 8). Because of these findings, the ESL collection should include audio materials as well as books. In particular, the Page 4 of 11

5 Pimsleur ESL programs would enhance the collection greatly. Each course English for Korean Speakers, for example treats special problems that Korean learners have with English, not only with grammar and vocabulary, but also with pronunciation. This can be important when the ELL student has trouble conveying their meaning because of difficulties with accents in American English (Walker, 2011). As an audio teaching course, the ELL students will acquire practice with aural English using the Pimsleur courses. It is also important that ESL students experience American pop culture in order to understand the context of the language and what is being communicated (Duff, 2001, p. 103), so materials treating these subjects must also be included. PROPOSED INITIATIVE Project Goals We at the NOVA Annandale Campus Library propose to raise the English literacy skills in the foreign language community college students. We desire to give students a greater opportunity to achieve success in four-year institutions and beyond. In order to accomplish this goal, we seek to acquire ESL books covering the subjects of grammar, writing, and reading comprehension. We also propose to provide books and reading materials that cover American culture, current topics in the news and of popular interest, and other reading materials that give the ESL students a flavor of the American culture in a way that helps them to integrate their experiences into the culture of their new community. In addition we wish to acquire the Pimsleur ESL Language Courses for the various foreign languages in order to provide high Page 5 of 11

6 quality aural practice in English. These courses will give the students instruction specific to learning English from the perspective of their native language. We also desire to make these materials available for circulation so that they will be more widely used. Expected Outcome By providing a diverse and extensive collection of ESL learning materials, the library will contribute to the increase in the percentage of foreign language students who continue in enrolled classes. The average grade of these students will increase and the percentage of foreign language students who graduate from NOVA will increase. As Walker (2011) points out, ESL students tend to be bright and motivated; indeed they are ambitious enough to work towards a degree in a non-native language (p. 22). For this reason, the investment in the future of these students will reap long-term benefits for themselves, for their community, and for the global community. Materials Needed We propose to acquire a variety of books written for ESL students covering English grammar, writing, and reading comprehension. In this collection will be fiction and non-fiction books written with simpler vocabulary on topics of current interest, such as news and pop culture, as well as classics in the English language. We also seek to provide courses in the Pimsleur ESL Language Program geared to teaching English from the perspective of specific languages, including but not limited to English for Korean Speakers, English for Farsi Speakers, Page 6 of 11

7 and similar titles. We also require supplies necessary for processing and adding the materials to the collection bar code labels, security tags, and spine labels. Planning and Implementation Schedule The Collection Development Librarian, Elizabeth Dellavedova, along with her two staff members, Travis Nace and Naimeh Abuel-Hawa, will spend a month evaluating and choosing ESL materials available on the market. With their selections in hand, they will consult with the director of the Annandale ESL Center, Veronica Campos, to finalize the selection. In all the selection process will take one month. After the final selection is made and approved by the collection development librarian at the Cataloging Unit of the NOVA library system, the books will be cataloged and processed by the same Cataloging Unit then delivered to the Annandale Campus Library. Student volunteers will then shelve the books in a separate area of the reference section set aside for ESL materials. The shelves that will house the collection are already in place. The project will take not more than three months to accomplish. Method of Evaluation NOVA Community College collects statistics every semester on the student population and the percentages of the ELL students who drop classes, finish a degree at the college, and transfer to four-year institutions. We expect to see a rise in the percentage of ELL students who do not drop out of classes, who finish a degree, and transfer to four-year institutions. These statistics collected by NOVA Community College will reveal the success of this initiative. Page 7 of 11

8 PROPOSED BUDGET ESL materials and labeling: Pimsleur ESL Language Programs (CD) $4,830 Books $6,000 Security Tags $300 Bar Code Tags $500 Spine Labels $100 Total $11,730 Shipping for materials and labels: included in item costs Cataloging: provided by NOVA Community College Central Cataloging Center Shelves: already in place Labor for shelving and arranging of new materials: student volunteers from the college CONCLUSION NOVA Annandale Campus is committed to helping the ELL students work to their full potential by offering ESL tutoring and classes. As an important part of the academic community, the Annandale Campus Library supports the college by working for these same goals within the college as well as the community at large. Since many education professionals cite the importance of using many different types of English materials for teaching English to ESL students, the library seeks to provide a wide variety of materials which the students can check out and use at home. By providing these materials and making them easily available, the library will facilitate the learning of academic English and the culture of the United States. In Page 8 of 11

9 this way, Annandale Campus Library will be able to help these students succeed in their careers by offering them books and other materials which give broad exposure to the English language as spoken in the United States, thus making possible their full inclusion in their communities and increase their success and feeling of self-worth. REFERENCES Annandale Campus Library Website. (2008). Retrieved from: Campos, Veronica. (2010, November 30). From an ESL perspective: Deciphering the language of academic courses. [Special issue on Writing Across the Curriculum at the Community Colleges] Across the Disciplines, 7. Retrieved from: Duff, P. A. (2001). Language, literacy, content, and (pop) culture: Challenges for ESL students in mainstream courses. [Article]. Canadian Modern Language Review-Revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes, 58(1), Edman, J. L. and Brazil, B. (2007). Perceptions of campus climate, academic efficacy and academic success among community college students: an ethnic comparison. Social Psychology of Education: An International Journal, 12, doi /s y Goldrick-Rab, S. (2010). Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Community College Student Success. Review of Educational Research, 80(3), doi: / Page 9 of 11

10 Mak, B. (2011). An exploration of speaking-in-class anxiety with Chinese ESL learners. System, 39(2), doi: /j.system Robertson, A. (2008). ESL: Importance of speaking English. Canadian Newcomer Magazine, 22, article number 8. Retrieved from: Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment: Northern Virginia Community College, (2010). Strategic Vision 2015: Gateway to the American Dream. Retrieved from: Teranishi, R. T., Suarez-Orozco, C., & Suarez-Orozco, M. (2011). Immigrants in Community Colleges. Future of Children, 21(1), US Census Bureau. (2000). American FactFinder: ZipCode Tabulation Area Retrieved from: US Census Bureau. (2011). Annandale CDP QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau. Retrieved from: Walker, C. and Click, A. (2011). Meeting the reference expectations of ESL students: The challenges of culture. C&RL News, 1, Yigitoglu, N. (2009). What Every ESL Student Should Know: A Guide to College and University Academic Success - Review. Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 13(3), 1-3. Retrieved from Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language website: Page 10 of 11

11 APPENDIX A. Resume for Elizabeth Dellavedova, Collection Development Librarian NOVA Annandale Campus B. Resume for Travis Nace, Assistant Collection Development Librarian NOVA Annandale Campus C. Resume for Naimeh Abuel-Hawa, Collection Development Librarian NOVA Annandale Campus D. Resume for Veronica Campos, Director of ESL Center NOVA Annandale Campus I certify that: This paper/project/exam is entirely my own work. I have not quoted the words of any other person from a printed source or a website without indicating what has been quoted and providing an appropriate citation. I have not submitted this paper / project to satisfy the requirements of any other course. Signature Helen Helm Date 21 November 2011 Page 11 of 11