Language, Literacy, and Professional Pathways for Language-Minority Students in Community Colleges

• In Event: Into, Through, and Beyond Community College: Pathways for English Learners and Language Minority Students

Abstract

In many community colleges, efforts to prepare students considered not yet “ready” for college level instruction, especially those from language minority backgrounds, are dominated by views of language and literacy as discrete “skills” (Ivanic, 2004) to be addressed through “remedial pedagogy” (Grubb, 2013) and “curricularization” of language (Valdés, 2011)—often with little regard for the genres and discourses students will encounter in their academic and professional futures. In order to inform preparation and support for language minority students, a better understanding is needed of the language and literacy demands of college-level, credit-bearing coursework required for completion of professional certificates, associate’s degrees, and transfer to four-year institutions. At the same time, these language and literacy demands cannot be understood outside of the context of the pathways students take to navigate them, and how students, instructors, and institutions conceive of the journey (Bunch et al., 2011).

The project reported on in this paper investigates the genres, “literacies,” and practices associated with academic and professional program areas in community colleges, considering the contexts, discourse communities, and text types that influence disciplinary and professional norms in particular settings (Beaufort, 2007; Carter, 2007; Lea & Street, 1998; Hull & Moje, 2012; Russell, 2002). Linguistic and rhetorical dimensions of academic work are considered in light of classroom and institutional contexts, students’ experiences, and available supports (Bazerman, 1997; Bunch, Walqui, & Pearson, 2014; Hawkins, 2004; Hyland, 2015; Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013).

The paper reports on an investigation of language and literacy demands associated with two program areas, allied health (AH) and early childhood education (ECE), at one central California community college. We observed courses; reviewed instructional documents; interviewed instructors; and conducted student focus groups. We transcribed, coded, and iteratively analyzed interviews and focal groups using a priori and in vivo codes related to students’ backgrounds and goals, program requirements, language and literacy demands, and pedagogical supports.

We found that, even within a single program, students had widely divergent backgrounds and future goals, and instructors struggled with identifying specific challenges facing language minority students and ways to support them. AH faculty members positioned students’ challenges not in terms of allied health careers, but rather in terms of general academic challenges facing all students, including “critical thinking” and “problem solving,” navigating textbooks, acquiring content and vocabulary required for biology courses, and time management given work and family demands. Students in AH courses focused on their passion for health topics and on the strategies they employed to manage academic content and prepare for exams. In ECE, students were more likely to come from language minority backgrounds, less likely to have previous higher education, and almost all already teaching in the profession or clearly intending to. ECE instructors varied in focusing on language and literacy demands associated with foundational academic content versus the practices associated with the profession. ECE students grappled with career-specific demands, such as using comprehensive assessment inventories, but also with academic reading and writing challenging in their courses, especially given time constraints due to their simultaneous employment.

Authors

• George C. Bunch, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Nora Lang, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Heather Schlaman, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Kylie Alisa Kenner, University of California - Santa Cruz