A study of the composition of 120 students completing one year of Spanish with emphasis on the study of drop-outs

• Main Author: Turner, Robert Myers
• Other Authors: Lawhead, Victor B.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Spanish language > Study and teaching.
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/178536; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/416634

The problem which prompted this study was that of determining the causes for the drop-out of students in Spanish from first to second year at Thomas Carr Howe High School, Indianapolis, Indiana. For comparative purposes it seemed profitable to include also in the study those students who were continuing in order to ascertain any existing differences in composition.Behind this basic problem lay the fact, supported by figures compiled in the language department at Howe High School over a period of years, that approximately half the students which initiated foreign language study did not continue to a second year of that study. This evidently was not a local problem for in New England, where schools have long emphasized foreign language study, second-year enrollments have not far exceeded half the number of first-year enrollments. Although a consensus of opinion of teachers of modern foreign languages would reveal that real satisfaction of working with a language does not come to the student until the third and fourth years, and that the first two years are directed largely toward assimilating material which assists the student toward that goal, studies have shown that only about 12 per cent continue to their third year, and that approximately 60 per cent discontinue their study at the end of one year.1 Naturally these facts pose a problem for which many educators would like a solution.The information which results from this study should have value for all those who have contact with the teaching of languages at Howe High School but it is hoped that the information might also provide the impetus for studies of a similar nature at other schools and finally result in greater numbers of students continuing their modern language studies to the point that they might more completely enjoy the returns of their earlier labors.