Concurrent Enrollment and Academic Performance of Community College English Language Learners

Community colleges provide open access and affordable options for higher education to a growing population of adult English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States. Language minority groups, particularly native Spanish speakers, are currently the fastest growing demographic in the nation. Community college English as a Second Language (ESL) courses constitute a vital support for these students by providing adult ELL students with foundational college literacy skills. With the growing demand for college graduates in today's workforce, language minority students, like their native English-speaking (NES) counterparts, need to leave college with vendible work credentials. Community colleges need practical and affordable ways to improve learning and degree completion rates of their English language learners. College ESL programs face two key challenges in realizing this goal: (1) providing quality language preparation for college-bound E LLs, and (2) developing efficient ways to deliver curricula to a student population that has limited financial resources and time. This was a single institution case study that investigated two ESL curriculum models at a large urban community college. The study compared the academic performance and persistence of ELL students who studied in a sheltered ESL curriculum to ELL students who studied in a concurrent enrollment ESL curriculum that combined college-level courses with advanced ESL study. The researcher analyzed student data from college archives: transcript data, admission data, and course performance results. Data from three student groups were salient to the study -- students in concurrent enrollment courses (partially-mainstreamed ESL students), students in traditional ESL courses (not mainstreamed), and native English speakers in freshmen-level general education courses. The study described the relationship between the two types of ESL curriculum and the academic performance and persistence of ELL students in each program. Findings showed that advanced ELL students were able to successfully complete select college courses as they finished their ESL program. Results indicated that early access to college courses motivated students to persist. This study can help ESL practitioners and administrators in higher education determine if a concurrent enrollment curriculum model is a viable alternative for intermediate and advanced level ELL students.