Fluency First in English as a Second Language

Purpose

To reduce the high failure rate of non-native English speakers in writing courses, this project tested the viability of a "whole language" approach to teaching English as a second language. Rather than emphasizing grammatical correctness in the first English as a Second Language (ESL) courses, instructors concentrate on developing fluency in English usage. "Fluency First" is based on the work of Mayher, Lester and Pradl as presented in Learning to Write/Writing to Learn.

Innovative Features

The well-explored whole language approach to second language learning stresses a more natural use of oral and written language, rather than narrowly confining discourse to a particular aspect of grammar that is the focus of a given lesson. The Fluency First project adapted these techniques to a college-age population. Twenty-seven adjunct faculty received extensive training before the courses began.

Fluency First comprises a three-course ESL sequence in which students proceed from fluency to clarity to correctness. Students are first taught to write intelligibly and with relative ease, and to comprehend popular fiction. In the second phase, students pursue clarity--writing lexically accurate, well-organized and developed prose. The third phase focuses on grammatical and mechanical correctness. In all three courses, students read about 1,000 pages of unabridged text, and write upwards of 10,000 words. This heavy exposure is innovative in the ESL field and intends to augment and accelerate language acquisition.

Evaluation

Project directors were able to collect data regarding the success of ESL students in later work in English composition for two years (1983 and 1986) preceding the introduction of Fluency First, and for the three years of the project (1989-1991). With the exception of one year, the data cover more than 800 students per year.

An evaluator external to the program visited classes and training sessions, and elicited opinions and comments from ESL students and teachers who participated in Fluency First.

Project Impact

Between 1983 and 1991 the percentage of students satisfactorily completing the last of the three ESL courses on the first try increased from 38 percent to 77 percent, with the most dramatic increase coming in the last year. Those students who began the ir ESL program with the second course passed the third course on their first attempt at an even higher rate, more than 85 percent-- up from about 51 percent in 1983.

Fluency First students found it easier to pass the College-required English composition course. Whereas in 1983 students had tried this course an average 1.47 times before passing it, by 1991 the average was down to 1.07 attempts. In other words, the vast majority passed it on the first try.

Lessons Learned

The data accumulated on student success were highly influential in persuading other instructors to try Fluency First. Their efforts in turn helped the project directors to refine their approach and define more carefully their criteria for measuring success.

The data collected measure students' performance in writing English. Fluency First puts equal emphasis on reading, but efforts to arrive at a reliable assessment of reading ability improvement for these students have been unsatisfactory. Similarly, the value of this approach for improving speaking and listening skills has not been determined, since the focus of the ESL courses is on reading and writing. There appear to be some collateral gains in oral skills, but they have not been measured.

While the majority of ESL instructors were enthusiastic about Fluency First, some full-time faculty resisted it and did not wish to participate in the process of developing and implementing the strategies. This reaction reinforces the importance of involving as many faculty as possible in pedagogical innovation.

Project Continuation

Fluency First continues to thrive in CCNY s English as a Second Language Department. The program's leadership is training new teachers on campus and at other CUNY colleges that have adopted the approach. The database on student performance continues to grow. Information on over 8000 students demonstrates that success rates in passing basic college writing courses are over twice as high as before the introduction of Fluency First.

Dissemination

Workshops on Fluency First attracted 250 faculty from CUNY campuses and the New York City public schools, and more than 90 percent of the participants in these workshops have since used at least some part of the Fluency First approach in their teaching. It is now the official approach at three other CUNY colleges--Kingsborough and Bronx Community College and Baruch College--as well as Monroe Community College in Rochester and Union County College in New Jersey. The project directors made presentations at international, national and state meetings of ESL teachers, and published four textbooks and monographs.

Recently, Fluency First has been awarded a two-year FIPSE dissemination grant to adapt the whole language model to six additional college and university sites.

Available Information

Program director Adele MacGowan-Gilhooly has made a teleconference videotape which, with accompanying written materials, provides a good intr oduction to the use of whole language methods in the college setting. It is available from TESOL International , Alexandria, VA (703- 836-0774). The Fluency First project is described in the first issue, March, 1991, of College ESL and in the Journal of Basic Writing, Spring 1991 issue.

Those interested may read about the Fluency First Approach in Achieving Fluency in English and Achieving Clarity in English, both by Adele MacGowan-Gilhooly and published by Kendall- Hunt, and in Fluency First: A Whole-Language Guidebook for ESL and BW Teachers, by Betsy Rohrschach, to be published by Heinemann-Boynton/Cook. To receive the Fluency First training via e-mail, teachers may subscribe to TESL-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU, and join the TESLFF-L list.

Further information about the project is available from:

Adele MacGowan-Gilhooly
Anthea Tillyer
Department of ESL, R5/218
City College of CUNY
138th St. and Convent Ave.
New York, NY 10031
212-650-6289
E-mail: adelemg@AOL.COM
E-Mail: aticc@cunyvm.cuny.edu

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