Title: Polish immigrant adolescents learning English in Chicago
Description: Little is understood about second language acquisition during the period of adolescence, particularly for immigrants living in ethnic enclaves in the United States. The current studies explored this topic using self-report measures and vocabulary scores obtained from a sample of 70 native Polish-speaking adolescent immigrants from a public high school in Chicago who arrived in the U.S. between the ages of 12 and 19. Qualitative interviews were undertaken with a subset of six of these students. On average, these students used more Polish with family, friends, and residents of their neighborhood. The students who were interviewed revealed that they were usually not exposed to English outside of school, and that they perceived a lessened need to learn English because of the large number of Polish-speakers in their community. However, they suggested that some situations were helpful in their English acquisition. These included being forced to use English (e.g., during interactions with monolingual English-speakers) or being highly motivated to master English (e.g., the necessity to understand a video game). The students perceived situations like these as essential to ultimately becoming fluent in English.

The analysis also examined ways in which the length of these adolescent immigrants' stay in the U.S., age at which they immigrated, as well as the language they used and were exposed to related to their performance on vocabulary tests in Polish and English. It was found that age at which they immigrated had a negative impact on the subtest of the English vocabulary assessment which called for naming pictures in English but was not a significant predictor on the subtests assessing knowledge of English synonyms and antonyms. Time in the U.S. was positively related to student's scores on all English vocabulary subtests. Future research should explore ways in which sociolinguistic setting may affect adolescent immigrants' language learning across time and across domains of language. A better understanding of these settings could help educators think about how to address the unique sets of challenges and language learning opportunities experienced by adolescents living in ethnic enclaves and offset the disadvantages to second language attainment that such circumstances may present.
Subjects: Second language acquisition, Age factors, Language acquisition, English language, Study and teaching, Foreign speakers, Children of immigrants, Education (Secondary), Bilingualism, Bilingualism in children
Places: United States