High School Performance of Cape Verdean Immigrant Students in New Bedford: A Linguistic Perspective
The English language (EL) has become the world’s lingua franca. It has entered a great number of countries’ educational systems and it has become a requirement to succeed academically and professionally. Cape Verde is one of the countries that have included EL in their school programs; the quality of the learning process in English is a permanent issue for Cape Verdean schools. In this project, Cape Verdean immigrant students in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who started their high school education in Cape Verde and continued in the New Bedford High Schools will be interviewed in order to explore their integration in the New Bedford school and also discuss their academic performance in connection to their EL usage abilities. The objective of this study is to add to the discussion of how to better accommodate immigrant students and connect, if applicable, the Cape Verdean immigrant students’ experiences, struggles, and performance to their EL acquisition process experienced back in Cape Verde. Struggles with EL during school program may greatly affect these youth’s performance and jeopardize their achievement of the academic goals set by the Massachusetts’ school system. The outcomes of this study contribute valuable information that could help in the ongoing improvements of the current programs in New Bedford high school and also could help in the amelioration, if needed, of Cape Verde high schools EL programs.
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education, Reading and Language
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