Book Report: Us Language Minority Students; Voices From The The Junior High Classroom Essay

Voices from the Language Classroom deals with studies of second language acquisition from the students’ and teachers’ perspectives. What makes this book interesting is that all of the studies were conducted through naturalistic inquiry and qualitative research. Rather than numerous statistics, data and other such quantitative figures, readers gain an insight into people's attitudes, behaviours, values and concerns. The various chapters investigate such issues as teachers’ actions and plans, language-related anxiety, curriculum changes, classroom interactions and the effects of socio-political issues on teaching and learning.
The study referred to in the chapter entitled U.S. Language Minority Students: Voices from the Junior High Classroom was carried out within a curriculum remodelling project. The study sought to discover the attitudes and opinions of the students who were experiencing the curriculum changes. The schools involved were situated in urban Los Angeles. Five were located in a Mexican-American community, and the sixth in area of mixed ethnic minorities. They were all ‘disadvantaged’, with many students abandoning their studies early. The project consisted of a teacher training programme and creation of individualised action research plans by the teachers, focusing on a cooperative, student centred approach to teaching. The aims of the project were to enhance teaching and learning of the language minority students so that the students could gain proficiency in their core subjects and in English literacy through developing their first language. It also sought to help them develop learning and study strategies and to become more efficient and motivated as students.
The theoretical foundations for the orchestration of the project came from three sources. The first was from the 1981 book The Helping interview. It describes techniques that can be used to help an individual realise where changes need to take place and how to go about these changes. The...