5.1. Factors Leading to Good Adjustment
5.1.1. The Attitude toward and the Proficiency of English
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5.1. Factors Leading to Good Adjustment
Shelly’s learning experiences in the late immersion program illustrate how a variety of factors influence a learner’s adjustment to the new academic environment.
In this section, the factors that played a positive role on Shelly’s adjustment are presented through four perspectives－her attitude toward and proficiency of English, her familiarity with the environment and the content, the dynamics of her interaction with the curriculum, the teachers, and the peers, and lastly the influence of her self-efficacy and the ability to employ coping strategies in dealing with the challenges.
5.1.1. The Attitude toward and the Proficiency of English
The finding of this study revealed the fact that Shelly regards English as a tool, and her high level of L2 proficiency helped her to get accustomed to the new
immersing context, the international school.
The first discussion is about Shelly’s attitude toward English. Due to her childhood residence in Canada with her parents, she considered English as a tool rather than an unmanageable subject. After the whole family moved back to Taiwan, she annually had the chance to be exposed to a natural context of English (e.g., one week trips to the U.S. for traveling or visiting relatives), in which she was a fluent language user while communicating with other English users. These exposures to
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natural context positively influenced Shelly’s perception of English as a tool for communication rather than a subject to study. It is found that such attitude has a positive association with Shelly’s adjustment to the international school. The fact that English is a communicative tool for Shelly resembles to the rationale of an immersion program, in which a second language is used as a vehicle by students and teachers to communicate content knowledge (Cammarata & Tedick, 2012;
Larsen-Freeman, 2000; Snow, 2001).
In addition to the attitude, Shelly also possessed a high level of English proficiency which had been cultivated through English courses since her childhood at home and in the kindergarten. She is currently attending mainstream English courses, which is also an indicator of good English proficiency. Moreover, through the eyes of the researcher who visited Shelly twice a week as a private tutor, Shelly appeared to be a good language learner and user in the way she took advantage of her language tool to acquire content knowledge as in the Science class, in the way she adopted a whole-context strategy for reading comprehension rather than a dictionary strategy to get the meaning of an unknown term, in the way she code-switched from Chinese to English when describing the new knowledge she learned from academic courses, and finally in the way she regarded both English and Chinese as a communicating tool.
In addition to her attitude considering L2 as a tool, Shelly’s high level of
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English proficiency was another facilitating factor for her adjustment to the
international school. This finding lends support to earlier results of immersion study
－there is a positive relation between an adequate level of English proficiency and successful learning experiences(Cummins, 2000; Johnson & Swain, 1994; Johnstone, 2007). As one might expect, the mastery of English is a compelling indicator for effective learning in an immersion program or vise versa. It is also a conclusion shared by voluminous research results in the field of immersion education. A number of previous studies caution that students who have not passed a threshold level of language ability is in no position to glean the benefit of bilingualism (Cummins, 2000; Cummins, Baker, & Hornberger, 2001; Johnson & Swain, 1994).
For late immersion students in particular, they are inclined to experience a so-called proficiency gap, consisting of inadequate ability of linguistic competences (e.g., vocabulary and grammar aspects), academic proficiency, and receptive and
productive skills. This gap indicates the difficulties that late immersion students are likely to encounter, and they arise from the fact that they experience a switch of instructional language from L1 to L2.
On the other hand, although Shelly indulged in a late immersion program where proficiency gap might get in students’ way, she presented no difficulties in learning through a second language in the international school in the first semester for Shelly has passed the threshold level, labeled by Cummins et al. (2001). The
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degrees of benefits Shelly gleaned from the immersion program remain unclear; yet, it is certain that she made an appropriate adjustment to the new environment and was able to acquire the content knowledge through L2 instruction.
According to the results of this study, English proficiency was not the only reasons accounting for Shelly’s good adjustment; her perception of English as a tool also played a pivotal role in leading her to grow accustomed to the new environment without delay. Taken together, Shelly’s attitude toward English and her adequate proficiency of English justified her speedy adjustment to the international school.
These combined qualities also explained why there was no anxiety before Shelly’s transfer to the international school. For Shelly, it made little differences to use either L1 or L2 as a learning tool.
5.1.2. Familiarity with the Environment and the Academic Content
Shelly’s familiarity with the environment and the content of courses was another distinct factor explaining her successful adjustment to the international school. This findings are in accordance with earlier findings (Dalton-Puffer, 2011;
Zuengler, 1993). Shelly made the transfer from one program (the secondary school) to another (the international school) in the same school, K school. As a result, she fitted in the community in no time with respects to making new friends and catching up with everything on the first day, and she felt proud of herself. This finding is in
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line with Dalton-Puffer (2011) who considers that students receives education within the same institutional and cultural content is a significant asset for learning in a L2-medium instructional environment.
Another aspect of familiarity, background knowledge of the content courses, also played a facilitating role for adjustment. Because of the inconsistent selection of textbooks between the secondary and the international school, Shelly had mastered the required chapters for the Math class and the Chinese class when she entered the international school for the first semester, which made her an expert in Math and Chinese. Besides, the difficulty level reported by Mr. Chen and perceived by Shelly,
was more basic and easier than the secondary school. Taken together, Shelly’s familiarity with the content area and the lower difficulty level in the international school had brought Shelly a not-so-challenging learning experience in these courses.
Suggested by Dalton-Puffer (2011) and Zuengler (1993), although an
educational institute might not assume students to presuppose content knowledge;
yet, being familiar with the content area can greatly improve students’ participation of mixed classroom discourse involving native speakers and non-native speakers.
This is not exactly true in Shelly’s case; the familiarity with content equipped her with the ability to employ learning strategies in a more flexible way rather than engaged her to participate more actively in the Math class. Because of Shelly’s negative impression on the class, she found herself acquire more knowledge of math
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when doing self-study of the textbook or consulting peers occasionally than listening to the teacher’s lecture which she considered unhelpful and confusing. That is to say, Shelly’s background knowledge in content areas offered rich sources for her to develop coping strategies to tackle challenging learning events.
5.1.3. Learning Dynamics
The process of learning in an immersing context is basically about the
interaction between the students and the curriculum, the students and the teachers, and the students and other students, and Shelly’s learning experiences could best be presented in this way. According to Mr. Chen, the overall educational goal in the international school was the pursuit of higher education degree overseas. Shelly’s long-term education goal was in accordance with the goal of international school; at this point, Shelly showed no resistance to acquiring content knowledge through her L2. This finding is consistent with previous research done by De Courcy (2002), in which the positive impact of matched goal between the teachers/curriculum and the students are stressed.
In addition, the matched learning expectation between the students’ and the teachers’ was also reported to cause positive learning experiences. Shelly expressed a strong preference for the Science class. To begin with, Shelly’s learning style resembled to the science teacher’s teaching style. For example, Shelly favored how
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the science teacher adopted hands-on activities, videos, and jokes in class, which attracted her attention and sustained her interests in this course.
Besides, teaching and learning is not only about teacher’s demonstration and students’ receiving of information but also about a variety of evaluating methods.
The international school promotes group projects as a means for the evaluation of academic performances, and Shelly’s responses to this kind of tasks were more positive than written exams and homework. The present finding reaches similar conclusion with De Courcy (2002) and Ranney (1992) in that the shared scripts, “an expected sequence of activities” (Ranney, 1992, p.57), increase students’ learning acquisition.
Lastly, Shelly’s peers also played a facilitative role promoting her adjustment to the new environment. Mentioned earlier in chapter four, Shelly found the math lecture not helpful and thus decided to study the textbook on her own. Shelly’s peers played a significant role by acting as a consultant for her to clarify her thoughts when she encountered some unknown academic terms that refrained her from understanding, for example, short essay questions. In other words, the collaborative relationship between Shelly and the peers was a pivotal key in making Shelly’s self-study strategy work successfully. The importance of collaborative learning is also stressed in previous findings proposing that how cooperation and collaboration with other students result in better learning (De Courcy, 2002).
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5.1.4. Self-Efficacy, Challenges, and Coping Strategies
Shelly’s self-evaluation statement, “I am awesome”, had repetitively shown up throughout this study for it conveyed her belief in her capability to accomplish academic tasks required in the international school. Even though the researcher had concluded earlier that Shelly made good adjustments to the new environment, it did not mean that she was free of challenges. There was still some challenging moments that put Shelly’s smooth learning in danger. The challenges she encountered could be categorized into language problems and her attitude toward homework, in which Shelly’s responses to these challenges and the underpinning affective factors are discussed.
One of the challenges was language problems. Shelly showed a lack of understanding in academic terms in the math textbook, and she expressed that the lecture of Social Studies was too fast for her to follow every word and concept. Yet, these challenges were solved through Shelly’s own coping strategies. For unknown words, she adopted a “whole-context strategy” to find more definition or explanation of the unknown word in a larger context rather than check the dictionary for Chinese explanation. And her peers are always available for her to consult. For the speedy lecture in Social Studies, she had herself concentrated on the lecture and she got used to the speed. These findings suggested that Shelly adopt more flexible learning strategies to deal with a given problem rather than just use dictionary to seek for
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translation in her native language. It led the researcher to believe that how Shelly initiated an action to facilitate a learning task was in high association with her self-efficacy, a personal belief in ones’ own capability (Bandura, 1997).
Moreover, being determined in her decision about the transfer and being always awesome for school work had provided evidence that Shelly possessed a high sense of self efficacy and confidence. Such an experience is consistent with the study of Watkins, Biggs, and Regmi (1991) that more confident learners incline to employ learning strategies and focus attention on content as a whole in order to produce ideal learning outcomes. In the same vein, Bandura and Schunk (1981) declare that students with a strong sense of self-efficacy are willing to take up challenging tasks and display flexibility when utilizing learning strategies.
Another aspect of language problems came to the teaching quality of a teacher.
Shelly found the accent of the math teacher was hard to understand and the teaching style of him made the math concept even more complicated. In fact, the issue of the quality of immersion teachers has been widely discussed in earlier studies. Subject and content-trained teachers are reported to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of a given subject in class; yet, they tend to show a lack of flexibility and sensitivity in language to create optimal input for immersion students (Dalton-Puffer, 2011; Kong, 2009; Kong & Hoare, 2012; Stella Kong, 2008). Feeling unsatisfied, Shelly
implemented self-reading strategy in response, that is, instead of listening to the
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lecture, she decided to study the textbook on her own. The self-study strategy was actually quite successful for Shelly had the background knowledge of the math concept. Here, Shelly’s familiarity with the content for the Math class was
supportive in helping her to survive the math challenges. The adaptation of a variety of learning strategies was a leading key for the adjustment.
In addition to language problems, the other challenges fell into Shelly’s own emotional side. Shelly hated to accept that it is her duty to submit a lot of homework during school days; however, no matter how much she devalued doing homework;
she had to do it. Having numerous examinations also appeared to be an obligated tiresome work for her. In fact, what she did for school (e.g., homework, exams, and el.) was in reserve of her willing; yet, due to the monitor role of Shelly’s mother who cared about her academic records and imposed punishment to her if she fails to meet her mother’s expectation. Thus, Shelly became determined to strive for academic success, and one of her best weapons was the combination of a strong sense of self-efficacy and the ability to formulate appropriate coping strategies for a given challenge.
Besides, the finding of this study manifested that Shelly’s mother played a significant role by acting as a monitor. She led Shelly to develop extrinsic motivation for learning in the international school. On the other hand, being self-motivated, Shelly also presents an inclination to encourage herself through the
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inspiring remark “I am awesome” to overcome challenges. While it was anticipated that well-motivated students are in a better position to benefit from late immersion education (Cummins et al., 2001; Johnson & Swain, 1994; Johnstone, 2007), Shelly’s experiences indicated that her negative attitude toward homework and examination did not result in detrimental learning defects.
5.2. Factors Hindering the Adjustment
The researcher has just foregrounded the combined influence of Shelly’s self-efficacy and her ability to wield learning strategies to tackle challenges in the last paragraph; yet, the language problems mentioned and Shelly’s attitude toward homework and examinations remained possible factors that might pose threats to Shelly’s adjustment to the international school. Even though Shelly was safe from these possible threats so far, there was still one unsolved challenge concerning Shelly’s own standard in the developing and learning of Chinese, her L1. To illustrate, Shelly’s expectation of her L1 development, her disagreement on the Chinese teacher’s teaching style, and the evaluating method of the Chinese class are discussed in the following paragraph.
First of all, Shelly’s mismatched expectation of L1 development appeared to be the most challenging task for her to deal with, and it was unfortunate that Shelly had not yet found a solution to the challenges and such emotion turned into an
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unresolved conflict between herself and her Chinese teacher, Mr. Chen. Shelly’s dissatisfaction with her L1 development was attributable to the overlapped selection of the textbook, the teacher’s teaching style, and the evaluating method in the Chinese course. The content itself was repetitive for Shelly for she had learned it in the last semester. Additionally, Shelly believed that if Mr. Chen only read the textbook and offered explanations that were already printed on the textbook she could acquire what she had to learn through self-study. In other words, Shelly
regarded the Chinese class not so helpful for her L1 development. Owing to the easy level of content and confusing lecture, Shelly became unsatisfied with her
development of L1. In Shelly’s opinion, it was also meaningless that Mr. Chen only circled the phrases on the textbook and asked students to learn by rote without explanation. It was even unbearable that she had to do exactly what Mr. Chen asked them to. Not owning her will, her emotion changed from being annoyed to a real complainer. The findings suggested that a shared script (De Courcy, 2002) or a matched expectation in teaching and learning is important for effective classroom learning. If the students and the teacher fail to agree with each other on the sequences and the way of learning and teaching, student’s unwillingness to
participate in class activities might increase. While students were usually left with no choices but to obey the teachers, the level of rejection to whatever in the
classroom might grow even larger, and it results in discrepancy between the teacher
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and the students, which is definitely not the direction toward effective learning.
However, as suggested in a considerable number of previous studies (Cummins, 2000; Cummins et al., 2001; Lazaruk, 2007; Snow, 2001), immersion education is additive in that it adds a second language to students’ repertoires without impeding the development of their L1. The finding of this study is in accordance with previous results for Shelly actually scores as well as she did in secondary school for the Chinese examination. On the other side of coin, the results of this study show a slight difference to those findings because Shelly was not satisfied with her L1 development in the international school which was too basic and simple in her opinions. The Chinese learning was not matched with the standard she set for her L1 development. The researcher here is in attempt to clarify that the additive nature of immersion program is validate if the evaluating criteria are based on students’ L1 scores obtained from proficiency tests. In other words, receiving immersion
education does not sacrifice students’ L1 when the L1 is measured by a proficiency test, but the scores on the tests only tell parts of the whole story. If the criteria are based on students’ own expectation of L1 development, things become different.
Although Shelly is still a high achiever in the Chinese class in the international school, she is not satisfied with her L1 development. Concerning Shelly’s own expectation in her L1 learning, the development was not satisfying because it was too simple. The reason why the Chinese course was basic, according to Mr. Chen
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(the Chinese teacher and homeroom teacher ), was because the international school aims to help their students to apply for universities overseas whose admission criteria depend not on the scores but rather on a variety of activities or students projects. It is why the international school decided not to put all attentions on the textbooks.
5.3. Implication of This Study
The present study has thrown light on how various factors influence a late
The present study has thrown light on how various factors influence a late