The Effect of After School Program Participation on English Language Acquisition

Article

This Report, released in 2008 by Stanford’s John W. Gardener Center for Youth and Their Communities. The Study examines English learning in an after school setting among students whose primary language is not English. Focusing on a large after school provider and one school district in the San Francisco Bay Area, we examine the determinants of program participation among native and non-native English speakers and the effects of participation on English language development as measured by the California English Language Development Test (CELDT). Findings indicate that students attending the program, particularly at higher levels of attendance, have greater rates of gain in the listening and speaking portions of the CELDT, but they are not redesignated as English proficient in school sooner than other non-attending students. Our results point to the need for increased examination of the link between in-school and out-ofschool activities in relation to English language acquisition among youth.