Who are University of Minnesota Language Students?

The goal of the Proficiency Assessment for Curricular Enhancement (PACE) project, which collected second language proficiency test data between 2014 and 2017, was to learn more about second language learners at the University of Minnesota and what methods and experiences are effective in helping them improve their proficiency in a second language. In an effort to share some insights from the PACE data, the Language Center has been publishing a series of short articles that highlight some of the findings of PACE researchers. We hope that these articles will provide information useful to instructors today.

In previous issues of ElsieTalk we examined Russian, Arabic, and Korean students in terms of heritage status and previous experience in studying the target language. In today’s report, we repeat the overview of those three student populations and expand the view to include the students of French, German, and Spanish whose first University of Minnesota course in those languages was the first course in the language sequence.

What the PACE data show is that students of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), Arabic, Korean, and Russian who began in this case in the first elementary course here, show a greater tendency to be true beginners than those who had enrolled in the first elementary course of French, German, and Spanish. The latter three languages are more widely offered in American secondary education language programs, while the two language programs with the highest proportions of heritage learners with no previous experience studying the language are representatives of LCTLs: Arabic and Russian.

A couple of notes on the composition of the groups that were investigated:

During the PACE project, since the total number of students of Arabic, Korean, and Russian was small, all sections in each of these less commonly taught languages were tested. Because we were unable to include all students of a particular level of French, German, or Spanish, a representative sample of sections were included. Additionally, many of the learners of these languages in the study first enrolled at a later stage in the language curriculum, so they are not included in this report. Finally, in Spanish we include students whose first Spanish course was either SPAN 1001 or SPAN 1022. This inclusion will skew the data somewhat because a requirement for 1001 is that students do not have any prior experience learning Spanish, while 1022 is mainly for those with some prior experience.

Of language learners whose first UMN language course was the first course in the sequence, the table below shows the number of language learners who identified themselves as heritage learners by responding positively to either of the following questions on the PACE Survey:

• Did you speak the target language in your home while growing up?
• Was the target language spoken in your home while you were growing up?

In addition, students were asked to indicate whether they had studied the target language previously in school.
 

Why is it useful to know whether language students begin their study at the University of Minnesota? Knowing this means that language proficiency test result data, like the information gathered from the PACE project, can tell us something about the language development that occurred as a result of the students’ class and class-affiliated experience.

Are you interested in learning more? Please send any questions or comments to PACE project data analyst Carter Griffith at grif0050@umn.edu.