Benchmarking First-Year English: An Analysis of the Language Proficiencies Required for Entry into First-Year English Composition
A Project Summary

Background

As increasing numbers of English as a second language (ESL) students are entering BC college and university programs, educators in these programs are becoming concerned about these students' preparedness. ESL students enter the post-secondary system through a variety of avenues, including articulated English for Academic Purposes (EAP) IV* courses, high school in Canada or a recognized equivalent system, or from overseas via recognized standardized tests. One consequence of this range of entry pathways is a lack of uniformity in entry level academic skills among the ESL student population in college and university programs. "Benchmarking", or analysing first-year language demands, establishes a baseline for entry-level language requirements that clearly shows the language skills necessary for success in first-year English courses in colleges and universities.

Funded by the BC Council on Admissions and Transfer and the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Provincial ESL and English Articulation Committees conducted a joint project to analyze the language demands of first-year university-level English courses in British Columbia. The project's goal was to describe in Canadian Language Benchmark terms the minimum language competencies second-language students require to function successfully in first-year English, and, by extension other first-year level courses. This project (Phase 2) builds on Phase 1: An Alignment of the Canadian Language Benchmarks to the BC ESL Articulation Levels (2007) In order to "benchmark" the courses, researchers analyzed data from four public post-secondary institutions, two colleges and two universities, collected in the first half of the term through classroom observations, instructor and student interviews, and assignment and student writing samples. The compiled data create a full description of the listening, speaking, reading, and writing requirements of first-year English composition courses.

The Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) uses a twelve point scale describing the language proficiency of non-native English speakers. 1 = no English 8 = college/university level entrance 12 = highest level of sophisticated fluency (eg. Defending a PhD thesis) Learners are placed on a scale based on language proficiency in four skill areas: listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The results have some important implications for the BC post-secondary system and address some of the challenges and concerns educators face in preparing ESL students.

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Result Highlights

For each language skill area (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) a minimum Canadian Language Benchmark was established and key academic language competencies were identified. If students are unable to meet these demands at the beginning of the course, they very likely will not succeed in the course. The accompanying Benchmark for each skill indicates the level that the researchers observed from the data.

Benchmark Levels for Entry into First-Year English

Some of the observations made by the researchers follow.

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Speaking Observations

Speaking Level: Canadian Language Benchmark 8

• Instructors expect students to ask questions and participate actively by providing opinions and explanations and synthesizing ideas.
• Small group work requires ESL students to interact with native English speaking peers, who generally use rapid and colloquial speech.
• ESL students can feel put on the spot when called to speak because they are unable to "convert [ideas] into words" quickly enough.
• Student speech should be reasonably fluent, with a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary. ESL students may make grammar and pronunciation errors, but these rarely interfere with communication.

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Listening Observations

Listening Level: Canadian Language Benchmark 8

• Classes in first-year English are primarily in lecture format, ranging from 50 minutes to 90 minutes, and are interactive. The interaction is most often teacher initiated.
• Students are often required to discuss and answer questions based on their understanding and interpretation of a required reading. This requires students simultaneously to listen to the lecture, follow the reading, locate appropriate examples, respond to questions and express informed opinions on the text. The variety and the complexity of the reading materials that form the basis for this active participation presents a challenge for ESL students.
• Students need to follow normal to rapid formal and idiomatic speech by both the instructor and their peers. This includes a wide range of complex grammatical structures and vocabulary.
• Information and key concepts of lectures focus on the analysis of texts, the writing process, and grammatical features of writing.
• Instructors use a wide variety of cultural references and assume that students understand them.

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Reading Observations

Reading Level: Canadian Language Benchmark 9 / 10

• The reading tasks at the first-year level are demanding and require high-level reading skills.
• Within the first half of the term, readings of varying length and complexity include personal essays in a variety of rhetorical modes, some literature, and discipline specific texts.
• Students are required to respond to content while they are simultaneously analyzing structure. This is a very challenging task for ESL students.
• Students are expected to synthesize and evaluate readings.
• Instructors emphasize that students need to read critically and actively, going beyond a superficial understanding of a text.
• In many cases, the purpose of the reading is to expose students to a range of academic writing genres and styles, and students are required to analyze them in this context.
• ESL students are expected to read more material, dealt with at a much faster pace, than they are used to at the EAP lV level, the advanced ESL course many ESL students take prior to first-year composition.

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Writing Observations

Writing Level: Canadian Language Benchmark 8 /9

• ESL students need prior exposure to and competency with basic essay structures to meet the demands of first-year English.
• Students require good control of common sentence patterns, coordination, and subordination, verb tenses and sentence variety; frequent grammar or vocabulary errors significantly affect students' grades.
• Students are given written guidelines for assignments and must follow detailed, specific instructions embedded in oral lectures. They must apply concepts covered in lectures in subsequent writing assignments.
• In addition to the CLB 8 writing skills required, students need to be experienced with CLB 9 level tasks; within weeks they are pushed towards benchmark 9 tasks.
• Students noted that writing was the most challenging skill area and that while they understood the concepts, they had difficulty with production. In composition courses, at least 90% of the course grade is assigned for written work.

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Recommendations

The results of this research show a clear transition from the highest level of English for Academic Purposes (EAP lV) to first-year English. Despite this, the findings lead to some important recommendations for ESL, English, and the post-secondary system.

Recommendations for ESL Instruction

• Institutions teaching articulated EAP IV courses are recommended to review the results and observations for confirmation of teaching goals.
• The findings point to the need to emphasize key areas of challenge for ESL students:

• Speaking
  • Provide frequent and spontaneous opportunities for short report- back presentations to the whole class.
• Develop students' self-confidence in oral competency through activities that focus on pronunciation, fluency, comprehensibility, and conversation management skills.

• Listening
  • Provide practice with extended interactive lecture formats, as in the Socratic method, with the question and answer structure.
    
    
• Reading
  • Increase the volume, complexity, diversity and pace of readings.
• Reinforce critical reading and thinking skills.
• Provide focused vocabulary development.

• Writing
  • Augment the existing instruction and practice in essay writing by increasing the volume and pace of writing production, in and out of class.
• Increase students' accountability for editing and self-correction.
• Develop depth and critical analysis in writing, beyond formulaic patterns.

• Socio-Cultural Competencies
  • Expose students to first-year courses through classroom observation and analysis of authentic video clips of classes.

Recommendations for English Instruction

The results of both Phase I (An Alignment of the Canadian Language Benchmarks to the BC ESL Articulation Levels) and Phase ll (Benchmarking First-Year English: An Analysis of the Language Proficiencies Required for Entry into First-Year English Composition) indicate clear transitions from EAP lV into first-year English. However, not all ESL students enter first-year English courses through this pathway, so instructors should be aware that this may result in a broad range of language ability among their ESL students.

• English instructors are encouraged to recognize that it is a challenge for ESL students to hear, understand, and process many colloquial and rapid verbal instructions that occur in a typical English class.
• English departments can refer to the EAP IV outcomes in order to identify EAP IV graduates' English language training background. See http://www.bccat.ca/pubs/ESL2007.pdf, pages 30 - 32.
• Institutions should provide ongoing, focused support for ESL students throughout their post-secondary studies, in recognition that language development is continuous, and therefore, even with the skills necessary upon entry, ESL students can still be challenged by the increased demands of their studies.

Recommendations for the Post-secondary Transfer System

• Given the various avenues for entry to first-year English, it would be advantageous to have a comprehensive tracking system to identify the pathways ESL students take in order to better assess their language development needs and direct them accordingly.
• Funding could be provided for exploration and development of support mechanisms for ESL students in university-level courses.
• Given that EAP IV should meet the entry requirements of any first year English (or other) course in the B.C. post-secondary system, it should be acceptable as an admission standard. Specifically:
• Add EAP IV to the list of ways that allow international students to meet the English language requirement for admission to university level programs.
• Implement EAP IV as a prerequisite for ESL first-year English courses.
• Add the designation "EAP IV" to the names of all ESL courses articulated at the EAP IV level so that student transcripts can clearly indicate the completion of an EAP IV level course, and therefore satisfy the English language prerequisite to first-year English.

This research has important implications for both ESL and English instruction, as well as for the BC education system as a whole. As key stakeholders take the research findings and recommendations into account in their planning and delivery of educational services, the result should be enhanced ESL student success within a more integrated post-secondary system.

The full report is available at http://www.bccat.ca/pubs/ESL.pdf. This research was jointly funded by the British Columbia Council on Admissions and Transfer and the Ministry of the Attorney General. Also see http://www.bccat.ca/articulation/committee.cfm for the previous report Alignment of Canadian Language Benchmarks to BC ESL Articulation Levels.
See http://www.language.ca/display_page.asp?page_id=207 for Canadian Language Benchmarks 2000 and the CLB 2000 Companion Tables.

* EAP IV is the highest BC ESL articulated course, used as a prerequisite for first-year English

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