1. Sneaking the Mother Tongue through the Backdoor
Andrea Parmegiani

2. Sneaking the Mother Tongue through the Backdoor: Using Students’ First Language to Promote English Acquisition and College Success

3. Explosion of linguistic diversity in the US
Nearly 60 million people speak a language other than English at home (more than 20%)
In most cases (62%), the “other language” is Spanish
The Latino population is expected to more than double from 2013 to 2060
If we assume a similar language distribution, the number of Spanish speakers in 2060 be as high as 69 million
Census Bureau

4. Benefits of Using Mother Tongue as Resource
Development of positive identities and self-esteem
Transfer of literacy skills from first to second language

5. First Language Development Facilitates Second Language and Literacy Acquisition
1978 TROIKE
1985 WILLIG
1992 RAMIREZ et. al
1997 THOMAS and COLLIER LINDHOLM-LEARY
2002 THOMAS AND COLLIER
2005 ROLSTAND, MAHONEY AND GLASS
2006 AUGUST AND SHANAHAN
2006 GENESEE, LINDHOLM-LEARY, SAUNDERS, AND CHRISTIAN
2007 KRASHEN, ROLSTAND AND McSWAN

6. Why Use Spanish as a Resource at Bronx Community College?

7. Racial Demographics (All students)
Hispanic
61.3%
Black
32.9%
White 3%
Asian/Pacific Islander
2.6%
Native American
0.2%

8. ESL Students at BCC
40% of incoming students report that English is not their first language
The vast majority of them are native Spanish Speakers

9. Success rates need to be improved
One Year Retention Rate: 56.6%
Six-Year Cumulative Graduation Rate: 22.4%

10. Learning Communities

11. Inviting the Mother Tongue into a Learning Community at BCC
40% of BCC students are ESL
The vast majority of them Speak Spanish as a first language
The department of Modern Languages already offered Spanish courses for native speakers
Most students have to fulfill a foreign language requirement

12. From Fall 2013 to Fall 2015. . . Five clusters have been offered
Forty-one students have been enrolled in on of the five clusters
Of these, 27 were First-Time Freshmen

13. How did these 41 students do?
Only three dropped out (93% had been retained)
Only four had GPAs below 2.0
Twenty had GPAs above 3.0

14. How did First-Time Freshmen in the Learning Community do?

15. Comparative Retention Rates for First Time Freshmen (FTF)

16. Comparative GPAs for Retained First Time Freshmen

17. To What Extent is This Success Due to the Learning Community with Spanish?

18. Two Emerging Themes

19. 1. The learning community created a space where students felt safe to express themselves in their second language and build self-esteem

20. I thank God that I had the opportunity to start college in a learning community. It was very helpful because not only was I starting college, but I was also in a new country where they speak a language that is not my first language. Knowing that I was taking classes with students who were at the same level that I was helped me build self-confidence and realize my potential as a student.

21. Outside the learning community, sometimes you look for someone to help you, you try to make friends, but other students reject you. I think it’s because we can’t communicate in English as well as they do, so they stay away from us. . .

22. 2. The link with the Spanish helped students understand English Academic Literacy

23. The Spanish class helped us because we learned what our professors expect when we write essays in English. In our countries, when we write something, we have to summarize, but here they ask you to do things we have never done before, like talking about our personal experience and supporting our opinion. When I first had to do this, I was like “what on earth is this?” In the Spanish class, we started to understand how things need to be done here in the United States. It was a very important class because it gave us the foundations. We learned how to give supporting details, to be aware of the person reading the essay, and to use paragraphs to organize our ideas. Then we were able to apply all this when we write in English in our other classes.

24. Conclusion
Quantitative data is limited, but it does suggests that inviting the mother tongue into a learning community could be a key to improving student success
Qualitative data suggests that Spanish facilitates academic success in English

25. How Spanish facilitates academic success across the curriculum
Students use Spanish to engage in literacy tasks they are required to perform in English across the curriculum
Spanish helps students build vocabulary in English
Spanish helps students see similarities and differences between English and Spanish grammar
Spanish enhances mutual intelligibility: when communication in English breaks down, Spanish restores communication in English
Spanish is used to validate students ad budding intellectuals
Spanish is used to put the instructor’s in the students’ shoes

26. Thanks

27. Andrea Parmegiani Bronx Community College
Andrea Parmegiani
Bronx Community College

28. Comparative Credit Accumulation for Retained First Time Freshmen

29. Giving This Key to More Students
Increasing the number of learning community clusters that link Spanish to ESL and English courses
Linking Spanish to other developmental and general education courses
Inviting other Mother Tongues into learning communities

30. Ways To Use Mother Tongues as a Resource

31. Creating a Mother Tongue Friendly Atmosphere
Accept the presence of other languages in the learning process
Allow these languages to be used as a resources by the students
Be very sensitive when encouraging students to use English more

32. In the Dominican Republic
Expenditure on public education among the lowest in the region
Basic and secondary education completion rates among the lowest in the region
Literacy practices in D.R. vary greatly from the U.S.

33. “Much greater emphasis was put in US schools on the development and expression of personal opinion” as opposed to “specific recounting of factual information in the Dominican Republic”
(Bartlett and Garcia, 2011)

34. When we were in the Dominican Republic, we never had to write about our personal opinion The writing in D.R. is about research topics that we can’t relate to such as history, ecology, and revolutions.

35. If I gave to a teacher in D. R
If I gave to a teacher in D.R. an essay like the ones my teachers want at BCC they would be very surprised. They could give me a bad grade and tell me that they don’t care about my life. They would say: “if you want to tell your experience, go to a counselor.”