A Successful Transition: A Bridge Program between ESL and the Mainstream Classroom

Abstract

Each semester, the English as a Sec ond Language (ESL) Program at Kean College of New Jersey pro vides instruction to more than three hundred students. They come to us from almost forty countries and speak more than twenty languages. About seventy five percent of these students are native Spanish speakers most commonly from Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Venezuela. Also well rep resented in the ESL Program are stu dents from Haiti, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Russia, and Korea. Certainly, New Jersey is not unique in receiving large numbers of immigrants, and the changing demographics of American society are reflected in our colleges as well. For example, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education (1991), Asian undergraduates grew from 206,000 in 1978 to 437,000 in 1988. At the same time, Hispanic undergraduates increased from 388,000 to 631,000. The 1990 U.S. census shows that over the last decade, the population of Hispanics liv ing in the U.S. increased by 53 percent and that of Asians and Pacific Islanders by 108 percent. At Kean College, the ESL students are a study in diversity. Some were well edu cated in their home countries; others