Acquiring English fluency for pupils taking English as an additional language

Demie, F. (2013). English as an additional language pupils: How long does it take to acquire English fluency? Language and Education, 27(1), 59-69.

Background

Very little research has been conducted to examine the time it takes pupils taking English as an additional language (EAL) to become completely proficient in it although there has been increasing concern with the best way to help them learn it. EAL pupils are school students whose home language is not English and who thus need to learn English to take part in school activities.

Aims

The study investigated how long it took EAL pupils in British schools to attain English fluency.

Sample

The study looked at 940 EAL students for which the researchers had data going back to when they started learning English to when they achieved relative proficiency.

Method

Data comprised mainly surveys. They also included language data and levels of fluency forms which were assessed and completed by EAL teachers. The measure of the stages of fluency was a 4-point scale (from the beginner to the fluent stage) that was prevalently used by the local authorities. EAL pupil-level assessment data was also used to analyze the various types of English proficiency as a function of the length of exposure to English.

Findings

The results indicated that it took an average of about six years for the pupils to become fully fluent in English. However, the time taken for each stage of fluency varied. It took about one-and-a-half years to complete Stage 1, about two years to complete Stage 2 and another two-and-a-half years to complete Stage 3. There was a significant difference between pupils who spoke different languages. Data suggested that EAL pupils from a Commonwealth country background tended to achieve full fluency earlier than those from other countries.

Implications

The author highlighted that EAL learners needed to attain English proficiency in order to perform well in school. As it took about five to seven years for them to acquire full fluency, the author suggested setting aside this amount of time for pupils to gain English proficiency. As the language barrier remained one of the key factors affecting the performance of these EAL pupils in English schools, the additional support they needed would be important for them to improve their levels of fluency so that their overall levels of achievement could be raised.

Original article retrieved from Taylor and Francis online.