Secondary Long-term Emergent Bilingual Students' Educational Needs

A qualitative research study was conducted to understand the academic challenges of long-term emergent bilingual students (also known as English learners) at the secondary level. The data collected included individual interviews with the students, plus language and academic performance records. The findings indicated that students' academic challenges were associated with their having had limited learning opportunities throughout their years of schooling. The result is that they have significant and accumulative academic gaps.