Ke An Lu

Project 2 part 1

I am very interested in the school system because of the important influence it

has on children, and especially the first and second generation of immigrant. In the
school system, the part that has the most importance to immigrants while is also the
most difficult to organize is the ESL system. As a 1.5th generation immigrant, ESL/ELD is
extremely important to me because of the help it provided that improved my oral
English and grammar. I can fluently communicate with others and be confident in my
communication skills. Thus, I want to see the influence of ESL program overall on
immigrants. There are also controversial part in this program which I am very interested
to discover and do research about.

I found the three initial sources. The first is the The Marginal effect of K-12
English development program: evidence from Los Angeles school by Nolan G. Pope,
who conclude that it may be helpful to put kindergarteners into the program, however,
it will be very beneficial to put the marginal 2nd to 4th grader to the main classes and out
from the program. This is the most helpful. The second is ESL program and the
American dream by Linda Campbell, who mentioned in her essay that there are
positive and negative effect of the ESL program. For those immigrant students who
received too much pressure from the process of learning and moving to a new
environment, this may affect their mental and physical health. However, for student
who are able to remain positive, the help ESL program gives them on learning the basic
skills of a second language in combination with the social interaction with native
speaker will help immigrants learn the language in a more relaxed setting. The third is
ESL Placement and Schools: Effects on Immigrant Achievement by Rebecca Callahan,
Lindsey Wilkinson and Chandra Muller, and Michelle Frisco. They conclude that the
effect of the ESL program depends on the school context, the generation status, and
also the interaction between both. The combination of different condition has either a
positive or negative effect on the development of students english skills.

Source citation:

Callahan, Rebecca, Lindsey Wilkinson, Chandra Muller, and Michelle Frisco. "ESL
Placement and Schools: Effects on Immigrant Achievement." Educational Policy 23.2
(2008): 355-84.

Campbell, Linda. "ESL Programs and the American Dream." York College. 31 Mar. 2017.
Web. 22 July 2017.
Pope, Nolan G. "The Marginal effect of K-12 English language development programs:
Evidence from Los Angeles Schools." Economics of Education Review 53 (2015): 311-28.
Web. 22 July 2017.