English Learners Outside the Classroom: The Effects of Participating in Extracurricular Activities

Conclusion and Future Direction

English Learners who take part in extracurricular activities benefit themselves academically and socially. English learners who participate outside the classroom tend to

improve their English skills because they practice the language with students from different backgrounds. Also, when they socialize with their peers, they start feeling more acclimated to the school culture and develop more positive attitudes towards the school. This research aimed to answer the question: To what extent do extracurricular activities affect the English language acquisition and social well-being of High School English Learners? The study revealed that English learners fear participating in extracurricular activities because they do not feel confident enough to communicate with teammates and coaches in English. In all three cases, students revealed that they are more likely to participate outside the classroom once they feel comfortable speaking English or if the adult in charge also speaks their language.
Schools should promote the use of unstructured activities outside the classroom to help English learners feel welcomed to the school and to help them practice their oral skills.
Although, one simple solution is to incorporate more Spanish speaking staff, a more inclusive solution will be to create a student bilingual volunteer program where students proficient in both languages can volunteer to help their teammates to communicate with others until they feel confident enough to do it themselves. This program can be beneficial for the English Learner student and for the volunteer student. The English Learner would feel less stressed about communicating in English with others and the volunteer student can receive community service experience for future college applications.
The findings from this case study resulted from interviewing three students therefore the data is specific to one school. Research should be performed at a much broader scale to provide more generalized results. The results of this study, however, may be used to determine strategies to increase English learners' participation in extracurricular activities. The recommendations made in this study aim to lessen the anxiety and fear of speaking a second language outside the
classroom, which appears to be the most significant barrier preventing English Learners from participating in extracurricular activities.