You may want to state a startling statistic that you’ve discovered
in your research. This statistic should relate to the thesis of your
paper. This strategy may be best employed when you can make the statistic
personally relevant to your reader.
During 1997, 798,378 immigrants were legally admitted into the United
States; over sixty-five percent of these immigrants originated from
countries where English is not the primary language (United States
1998). These numbers only indicate those legally admitted into the
country. As of October 1996, an estimated 5.0 million immigrants were
living illegally in the U.S., and in eighteen of the top twenty countries
where illegal immigration occurs, English is not spoken as a primary
language (Immigration 1997). These millions of immigrants coming to
the U.S. usually seek to become acclimated to American society, and
an important part of becoming a part of any society is the learning
of the dominate language. Someone has to teach these individuals English.
The task of teaching English to adult immigrants so often falls upon
local literacy councils. This paper informs adult education instructors
within those councils about pronunciation difficulties people learning
English as a foreign language encounter.
