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

Conclusion

Adult-supervised extracurricular activities are those that are not part of the regular curriculum. They give away for students to reinforce classroom learning while also allowing them to apply academic skills in a real-world situation (Metsäpelto et al. 2014). Collaboration, individual and collective responsibility, physical strength and endurance, competition, diversity, and a sense of culture and community are all attributes students may learn when participating in extracurricular activities. Children from immigrant families may benefit from participation in

structured after-school activities. These activities can be critical because they give additional experiences that assist academic progress (Donroe, A. 2020). Extracurricular activities can also help newcomers acclimate to school culture, increasing their interest in learning English, developing better work habits, and gaining social and intellectual confidence. Schools that encourage ELLs to participate in extracurricular activities like sports may see positive cultural and linguistic improvements.
Integrating English Language Learners into regular courses is challenging, but extracurricular activities can help ELL students' social-emotional well-being and language development outside of the classroom (Park, 2015). Communication and social participation improve children's language learning, making language development more meaningful. Creating opportunities for engagement, encouraging involvement, using innovative educational methods, and building tolerance are all things extracurricular activities provide for English Learners.
As the literature review indicates, taking part in extracurricular activities could have excellent advantages for English Learners adolescents, such as feeling part of a community and improving language skills, and motivation. This study takes place near the end of the 2021-22 school year, at a High School with a population of 16% to 18% of English Learners. At this site there is a very low participation of English Learners in extracurricular activities, and according to previous teachers' interviews, English Learners often do not integrate into the school culture and maintain a very closed group of mostly newcomers. There have been very minimal changes to improve this issue at this high school. This study will add a new perspective to the urgency of integrating English learners into the school culture as well as analyze the research and data to answer the following research question: To what extent do extracurricular activities affect the English language acquisition and social well-being of High School English Learners?
This study uses a semi-structured interview to gather information from English Learners students. They will be asked to answer several questions about their years of participation in extracurricular activities and the number of years they have been in the country. Additionally, students will share about their involvement in extracurricular activities and how acclimated they feel in the school by participating in after-school activities.