Sarah Courson

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

Second Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Barton, Michelle

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

The number of non-native English-speaking students has steadily risen since the 1990s in the United States and with this ever-rising number, trends of low academic motivation and achievement still continue to be seen. Some have theorized that through increasing bilingual education programs, non-native English-speaking students will lessen the academic achievement and motivation gaps between themselves and their monolingual, English-speaking peers. The current study therefore focused on introducing a bilingual lesson plan to a school with approximately half its students being non-native English speakers, yet without bilingual programming available for those students. The present study hoped to find that through allowing relatedness of language with a bilingual instructor, the motivational levels of students in the bilingual lesson plan conditions versus the English-only lesson plan conditions would increase more from pre-test to post-test. Results of the study showed that although motivation levels across two modified measures did not increase, comprehension levels of students in the bilingual lesson plan conditions increased more than students in the English-only lesson plan conditions. Implications of the current study’s findings suggest that the factor of relatedness could be the answer to aiding limited-English proficient students within the United States to increase their comprehension and motivation through their educators integrating the non-native students’ first language into their lesson plans.

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