The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 2 | Page 37

1981 to 1984 to compare ACT scores in English
and Math of students who had taken foreign
language courses in high school and those who
had not. The authors found students who had
taken foreign language courses had significantly
higher mean scores in both the English and the
Math sections. The mean for the English
portion for the students who previously took
foreign language courses was 18.63, while those
who did not take foreign language courses had
a mean of 16.95 in the same section.
Cooper (1987) evaluated the verbal portion
the SAT of students from 23 metropolitan high
schools who took foreign language courses and
those who did not. Cooper also found that
independent of the socioeconomic background
of the students, those students who took
foreign language courses in high school scored
significantly higher than those who did not.
The National Standards for Foreign
Language Education from the American Council
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL,
n.d.) provides Performance Descriptors for
three main levels of language proficiency:
novice, intermediate, and advanced. Typically,
students in high school do not go beyond the
novice level. At the novice level, learners of a
foreign language (FL) should be able to
communicate (orally and in written form) in the
FL at a personal level and to be able to present
information in target language to others. They
should also be aware of the differences and
similarities between the two languages (English
and FL) and should have the resources to be
able to communicate the same idea in different
ways. These descriptors support the charge for
American students to learn a second language
and gain from the noted benefits.
Today, the learning of an FL focuses more
on meaning than on form; but in order to be
able to communicate appropriately in an FL,
students need to learn not just the vocabulary,
but the grammar, usage, and mechanics of the
second language. Students entering high school
have already internalized the structure and
usage of their language and have learned the
mechanics of the written language. When

learning the FL, students become more aware
of how their own language works in terms of
structure, usage, and mechanics. They learn to
make meaningful connections in terms of
comparisons and contrasts between English and
the FL. This learning will certainly be an asset
when taking the English section of the ACT
exam.

Methodology
As university professors, we are frequently
asked by our stakeholders how students can
better prepare themselves for success on
college entrance exams and later achievement.
In a discussion with a graduate class, we
explored the impact of second language
learning on achievement. The topic was also
raised more specifically by one of our students,
Janie S., a high school foreign language teacher,
in later conversations. Understanding what
factors highly contribute to positive learning
outcomes for all students weighs heavily on our
minds. In spite of the fact that there are almost
800 higher education institutions using means
other than standardized tests to determine
students’ admissions to their programs
(Fairtest, n.d.), the ACT and the SAT continue to
be the two most widely utilized high stakes
tests high school students take in order to seek
admittance to higher education. With little
recent research on the relationship between
foreign language learning and achievement on
the current form of the ACT, we identified three
key questions we wanted to explore:
1. What are the components of the ACT and
what aspects can be connected to multiple
language learning benefits?
2. Does foreign language learning prior to
college continue to make an impact in students’
performance on the ACT in English?
3. Do college freshmen and sophomores
perceive that foreign language study in high
school helped them in their university
coursework?
To ascertain the answers to our questions, we
conducted a study within our University of
©The Missouri Reader, 37 (2) p.37