Non-Native Speakers of English in the Classroom - Essay Example

Non-Native Speakers of English in the room: What Are the Effects on Pupil Performance? This study focuses on the effects of an increase in non-native English speaking pupils on school performance in England. It examines negative and positive effects on the pupils’ performance both native and non-native English speakers. The interaction between native English speakers, white non-native speakers and non-white, non-native English speakers has a wide range effects on pupils performance both positive and negative. According to the recent studies, the number of non-native English speakers has increased tremendously in the recent past for the pupils enrolling in primary school especially those between the age of 5 and 11 years (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The statistics indicate that about one child out of nine is non-native English speakers in England. Between 2003 and 2009 the number of non-native speaking children increased by one-third to 12% of the total non-native speaker enrolled in primary schools in England (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 284). The cause of the rise in non-native English speaking pupils is mainly contributed by the immigrants from various surrounding countries and increasing birth rate of among the minority ethnic groups (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). This trend has raised concerns among the stakeholders in an education sector that the non-native English speakers may influence the quality of education of the native English speakers negatively. Some stakeholders have even suggested that the trend may have detrimental effects such as a decline in quality of education. This may occur especially because the instructors may have to spend most of their time in assisting children who do not speak English as their first language to learn and thus much time is wasted (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). However, other researchers have argued that the non-native students who use English as their second language have advantages over their white native peers that compensate for the lack of fluency in English. According to Geay, McNally and Telhaj (2013), the primary schools in England continue to enrol more numbers on non-native English speakers in primary school even as some people fear that this massive flow of non-English speaking pupils may compromise the learning of native English speaking pupils. Between 2003 and 2009 the number is suggested to have increased by one-third from 8% to 12%. Immigration and higher birth rate have been attributed to the increase in number of non-native immigrants in England hence their increasing enrolment of pupils in primary school (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The interaction between native English speakers and non-native speakers has a wide range effect on pupils performance both positive and negative. Through an interaction with pupils, there is some peer influence that causes effects on the individual performance. There is a perception that the increase in immigrants of non-native English speakers in England will put pressure on the educational resources in schools. The most constrained resource is instructors time because the instructors have to devote more time to assist the non-native who believes that the increasing number of pupils who use English as their second language argue that such children will require additional resources such as extra time for tutorial to help them learn quickly and come up to the level of their counterparts who uses English as their first language (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Therefore, they argue that with the attention of the instructors and most of the resources focused on helping the non-native English pupils the native white pupils are bound to suffer academically. The increase in teacher-pupil ratio is likely to influence the education performance negatively because the time each tutor spends on individual pupil will decrease. Since some learners require more interactions with their teachers for effective learning, the increase in teacher-pupil ratio will have detrimental consequences for both native and non-native pupils and the outcome of their studies (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Therefore, going by these perceptions the quality of education in England is likely to deteriorate as more non-native students continue to enrol in school. The studies have indicated that non-native students are likely to attend schools in London and other urban areas. Since most of the immigrants from Eastern European region are professing a Catholic faith, the parents prefer those schools run by a Catholic religion (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Those schools are mainly the so-called “big schools” due to big number of students they enrol. The direct effect of this practice results in increasing pressure on learning facilities in those schools. As they become more congested, the learning quality tends to decline leading to poor performance of the pupils than in other schools not associated with a Catholic faith. Most of the non-native pupils attend economically disadvantaged schools where they are unable to compete effectively with their counterpart native English speaking pupils who can get the chance to attend better schools (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Also, the native English speaking pupils experience pressure from the increasing number of pupils in the big schools. To avoid the undesired consequences, the native speaking pupils move to other schools with fewer children and more educational facilities (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Therefore, the native students rarely suffer direct consequences of the increasing populations of non-native speaking pupils. The parents of the non-native pupils have a strong believe that schools operated by Catholic Church have higher potential of impacting the lives of their children positively. The non-native speaking immigrants focus on schools owned by Catholic even as they move to England (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). This has been the cause of increasing pressure in some schools in England. However, the students who get accommodation in those institutions have an opportunity to improve their performance because those institutions impart good morals and culture better-learning culture. The performance of pupils in those Catholic schools has not indicated any decline in the overall performance of those institutions or the native English speaking pupils (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Also, there is no indication that the students in schools with only native speakers have better performance than those with non-native speakers. As other studies have shown, the increasing number of immigrant pupils in England has resulted in negative association between the non-native and native English speakers. In a study that was conducted among the pupils to establish the level of association between those different classes of students the result established that some of the native English speakers prefer schools with native speakers (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The study also indicates that some pupils may opt to leave those schools with large number of non-native English speakers because of the poor economic status and constrained resources. Consequently, the non-native speakers prefer Catholic managed schools that result in congestion of students or big teacher-pupils ratio (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The increase in number of non-native English speaking pupils in schools has also resulted in increased mobility of native students to schools with fewer or no non-native pupils. However, it has to be understood that these changes have no observable consequences on the educational performance of the native English speaking pupils. On the contrary, the native students join schools with fewer pupils where resources are less constrained and where they can enjoy the better relationship with their teachers. The mobility of native English speaking pupils from Catholic schools and other schools dominated by non-native English speaking pupils could be attribution to other issues other than educational performance (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Such issues may include social and economic factors whereby the parents may not be less reluctant to allow their children interact with immigrants. The number of non-native students with tertiary education is greater than the number of white native students by 16.1% (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Various studies have indicated that the immigrants children are well educated than the native speaking children or their parents. Although the actual cause of this observation has not been clearly established, there is suggestion that most of the immigrant children have well-educated parents, and that can compensate for any lack of language fluency at the premature stage. They have unique traits inherent among the non-native English speakers bring them at an advantage than their counterparts native children who use English as their first language because they have better understanding and teachable (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The cause of immigration could be to seek for better opportunities including better education for their children. Therefore, once such students get placed in the favourable environment, they have better chance to better their performance academically. They can get the chance to compensate for the detriments they encountered at their home places and achieve better performance (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). That has been the cause of increased number of non-native students in tertiary level than their white native counterparts. Their presence can motivate the white native speakers to become more vibrant in their studies thus making them better learners. From the observations made from various studies, the non-native students have excellent performance in mathematics compared to native speakers (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Although native English speakers have better reading and writing skills than non-native skills in the first year of joining school, studies have indicated that those differences diminishes as time progresses, and the non-native leaders perfect their reading and writing skills over time. In addition, the institutions with high number of non-native English speaking children are likely to receive additional incomes granted through “Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant” (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 282). The purpose of these grants is to support minority ethnic pupils who are at risk of underperforming and bilingual pupils. Also, the non-native English-speaking children have more advantageous traits than the native speakers. Therefore, with the support of Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant the native students can adapt to the learning environment quickly and achieve better performance (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Even when the overall results of the students are ranked in individual schools, the performance does not indicate any negative effect of the non-native on the educational performance of the native speakers. Furthermore, the strong learning characteristics of the non-native English speaking pupils One of these advantages is that the population of immigrant children with tertiary education surpasses the number of native speaker-born children by more than sixteen per cent. According to Geay, McNally and Telhaj (2013, p.3), most of the immigrants who came from Eastern European region and which is a Catholic dominant community led to increasing in enrolment of pupils in the Catholic schools. Although there was the high probability of non-native English students attending low-quality schools, there was indication that such cohorts could affect the education of white native English-speaking peers (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). However, based on this observation one can conclude that the immigrant pupils are likely to attend institutions that have low-quality education due to influence or their fellow non-native English speakers. The pupils’ performance in various subjects examined which includes mathematics and reading, and writing skills indicated there was no significant impact of the non-white speakers on the native white speakers (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). However, the non-native speakers performed better in mathematics that writing and reading skills. Therefore, the white native speakers performed better in in writing and skills than in other subject such as mathematics in the initial years of studies though there were no differences observed between the pupils who had spent longer time learning (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). This observation could imply that the non-native speakers were at an advantage of having better education after interacting with native speakers and that facilitated their learning. In addition, the second generation of non-native English-speaking children is better educated than their parents’ generation and the native peers. Other studies have established that the latest immigrants are younger and have better education than their white native counterparts. The pupils who migrate to other countries and continue with their education are pushed by parents with the focus, and they drive and will achieve best academic performance (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). This implies that when those children join other schools they can maintain their focus in order to achieve their academic goals. With the support of their parents or sponsors, those children strive hard to compensate for the lack of fluency in English (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Furthermore, since they are young and in their early days of fast learning they can catch up with their counterparts very fast and As a result, children from native speakers cannot suffer any detrimental effects in their education by having peers from non-native speaking groups (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). Therefore, the native English speaking students are at an advantage of having non-native pupils from bright families. This implies the native pupils have a lot to learn from those non-native pupils without the risk detrimental effects. As stated by Geay, McNally and Telhaj (2013), the non-native children join schools that are economically deprived. While in those schools they are free to mix with non-native pupils from a poor background or the needy that are there to acquire various grants offered to the needy pupils. Taking this into consideration and considering that both pupils are needy they are likely to interact positively with school. Furthermore, they are small children who not have the ability to segregate along economic or social classes. Therefore, there is the possibility for both pupils to influence each other positively and motivate each other to take part in their studies. The study investigated all English school children using the National Pupil Database and using the primary school children between 2003 and 2009 and based on the results of national test for the children at the age of 11 years. The aim of the study was to establish the relationship “between the proportion of non-native English speakers in a year group and the educational attainment of native English speakers at the end of primary school – and whether it can be interpreted as causal relationship” (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 282). The findings of the investigations established strong relationship between the natives and non-native English speaking children. Since most of the immigrants children in England are from learned parents, those children were likely to be more educated than the native English speaking children (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). However, the findings may have been misleading if assumed the population of the native speakers was diminishing as a direct reaction to the rising number of non-native speakers (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 282). However, further research that considered the two categories of non-native (white non-native English speakers and white non-native speakers) against the native English speakers which resulted in drastic fall in correlation with the education achievement of respective groups in their year group. The approach of the study aimed at establishing the “causal impact if all relevant controls are added, leaving only idiosyncratic variations in the percentage of non-native English speakers within the same school across cohorts of pupils in the final year of primary school (year 6)” (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 282). These investigations focused on establishing the credibility of the assumption by examining whether the proportion of the non-native speakers is associated with the specific controls when such detailed controls are put in place. The variation in the assumptions portrays constructive result for the non-white non-native speakers though less favourable for white non-native speakers. The white non-native speakers may have depicted declining value of a coefficient because the white non-native speakers have higher chances of attending schools having reducing quality (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The approach proposes the unlikeliness of having a "negative causal effect of intensification in proportion of non-native speakers of English on the educational attainment of the native speakers" (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013, p. 283). The fact that non-native pupils lack adequate information about the availability of affordable good schools and where they are available result to most of them settling in Catholic schools in urban areas (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). On the other hand, native pupils move to schools with fewer or no non-native pupils. Therefore, as a result of these factors there is no probability that the non-native pupils can negatively influence the educational performance of the native English speakers in England. The study examining the performance of native and non-native pupils in mathematics and English subjects demonstrated insignificant performance variations between native, white non-native and non-white non-native pupils in both subject (Geay, McNally and Telhaj, 2013). The non-native pupils are mainly transformed positively by the institutions they attend because they are managed by Catholic, and this increases the probability of non-native pupils influencing the native students positively. In conclusion, the increased number of pupils who non-native English speakers does not have any adverse effects on the native English speaking children in England. The observable slight negative correlation between the educational achievements of the non-native English speakers and the fraction of native English speakers in their year group is a reflection of the fact that most of the non-native English speaking pupils join disadvantaged schools. The studies have indicated that once the differences in the institutions attended by different groups are taken care of there is not observable variation between the educational achievements of the native English speakers and non-native English speaking pupils. However, the interaction between non-native children among the Polish immigrants studying in Catholic schools in England had some positive influence on the educational performance of the native English speaking children in the same institutions. Those children have a determination to study and are influenced by their parents to take their studies seriously hence they motivate their native English-speaking counterparts by creating a competitive environment. These findings demystify the fears built up by some persons who have held perceptions that the influx of non-native English speakers of pupils in schools in England can have the negative impact on the educational performance of the native speakers. There is no need for worry about the negative effects of increasing non-native pupils in primary schools in England. The stakeholders should focus be concerned about how they can maximize the benefits to the native pupils with their non-native English speaking counterparts. Bibliography Geay, C., McNally, S. and Telhaj, S. 2013, Non-Native Speakers of English In The Classroom: What Are The Effects On Pupil Performance? The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society: John Wiley & Sons. Pp. 281-307. Read More