Universidad Veracruzana

The conditions of English Language Learners in Arizona have been conducted using quantitative methodologies drawing from large data sets originating from language and achievement test scores from randomly selected children from which generalizations about language learning have been made (Rolstad, Mahoney, & Glass, 2005). Despite limitations in the data, such as those  pointed out by MacSwan and Pray (2005), the focus of research studies in Arizona has not been on individual language learners and do not take into account the great range of variation in ELL student populations: school conditions, teacher preparation and policy implementation across school districts. This books focuses on the experiences of four recent Mexican immigrant students who were beginning to learn English in an urban high school in Arizona in the spring term of the year 2008. The researcher chose to implement a qualitative study aimed at understanding what learning English in school settings entails for immigrant high school students. To accomplish the goal of this study he analyzed language practices that took place in the student participants’ English as a Second Language classroom and other school contexts through sociocultural approaches to the study of language and literacy as the theoretical and conceptual frameworks.