Evaluation of the Punjabi-English Class at the Moberly Primary Annex for the 1972-73 School Year.

This is an interim report of a special program to assist newly-arrived immigrant children from the Punjab in India. It describes a homogeneous class enrolling twenty pupils, all of East Indian origin and between five and eight years of age. The teacher of the Punjabi-English class kept an extensive anecdotal record of the growth and development of her students. An observation of the class was made by an educational psychologist to provide an external objective audit of the pupils' accomplishments. Various tests were administered to the experimental class and a control group of matched East Indian children. The findings showed that the special class appeared to be promoting the personality development of its pupils, particularly in social skills and oral expression. The program achieved its objective of developing in pupils sufficient facility in English so that more than one-half of them merited placement in regular primary classes. The report presents seven recommendations for the extension and further evaluation of the program. (Author/BB)