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Fostering Linguistic & Cultural Diversity in Education

Learn how to prepare educators for diverse students in an era of high standards through analysis and policy advocacy.

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Fostering Linguistic & Cultural Diversity in Education

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  1. Preparing Every Teacher for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students in an Era of Higher Academic Standards Dr. Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro Research and Policy Associate Dr. Luisiana Melendez Erikson Institute Gateways to Opportunity 2015

  2. Who We Are • Conduct analysis with Latino perspective to inform, influence and lead • Our four issue areas: • Early care and education • Housing • Immigration • Civic Advancement • Convene sectors of the community to engage in policy advocacy and training through our Acuerdo model • Advancing Latinos advances a shared future

  3. Today’s Objectives Leaders will be able to: • Describe demographic data on student diversity • Discuss the implications of the heightened language and literacy demands of the new Common Core State Standards • Discuss considerations for the preparation of early childhood educators for language and cultural difference

  4. Immigration and Today’s Students • Students from immigrant families will account for ALL the projected growth in the student population from 2005-2020—largely Latino and Asian • African American and White student populations in IL have declined • 1-of-4 children in IL have one foreign-born parent • 88% of IL children born to immigrants are U.S. citizens Fry, R. (2008). The Role of Schools in English Language Learner Achievement Gap. Washington, D.C.: Pew Hispanic Center. Census American Community Survey 2011

  5. % of Illinois Students Considered Low-Income a. 15% b. 25% c. 49% e. Over 50% *Children of foreign-born parents account for 33% of all Illinois children in low-income families Low-income: receive public aid, live in foster care, or eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. ISBE 2012 Condition of Education Report.

  6. 2012 ELLs in Illinois Total ELLs in Illinois (2012): 207,417 % of Illinois students who were ELL: 9.9% % of Chicago Public School students who were or are identified as ELL: 34%* 66% of ELL students are outside of Chicago Analysis: Latino Policy Forum Sources: Illinois State Board of Education. Bilingual Education Programs and English Language Learners in Illinois SY 2012 Statistical Report. (2013). “Chicago suburbs” includes the collar counties of Cook, Kane, Lake, Dupage and Will. http://www.isbe.state.il.us/research/pdfs/ell_program_stat_report10.pdf *Gwynee, Julia, Amber Stitziel Pareja, Stacy B. Ehrlich, and Elaine Allensworth (2012) “What Matters for Staying on Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools: A Focus on English Language Learners.”

  7. Increase in ELLs in Illinois, 2004-2012 • Percent Change from 2004 to 2012: • Illinois: +24% • Chicago: -3% • Non-Chicago: +61% ANALYSIS: Latino Policy Forum Sources: Illinois State Board of Education (2004) “Illinois Bilingual Education Programs,” Illinois State Board of Education (2012) “Bilingual Education Programs and English Language Learners in Illinois.”

  8. ELL Growth in Illinois Map Created by Carlos Lopez February 2014 Latino Policy Forum ISBE “2005 ELL Student Statistical Report”, ISBE “2012 Bilingual Education Programs and ELLs in Illinois

  9. Counties with New Presence of ELLs from 2005 to 2012 26 Counties have a new presence of ELL students Source: Illinois State Board of Education, ELL Student Statistical Reports Analysis: Latino Policy Forum Map by Carlos Lopez

  10. Illinois ELLs by Grades, 2012

  11. Illinois ELLs PreK-3rd Grade, 2012 Reasons for exit of ELL program in 2012: 64.3% exited and attained proficiency in the English language (transitioned) 35.4% exited but did not attain proficiency • exited from program at parent request • transferred to another district • graduated high school • exited for other reasons • dropped out Analysis: Latino Policy Forum Source: Illinois State Board of Education, Bilingual Education Programs and English Language Learners in Illinois SY2012 Statistical Report . http://isbe.net/research/pdfs/ell_program_stat_report11.pdf (p. 11)

  12. Today’s Illinois Teachers % of Illinois Teachers who are White: • 60% • 70% • 80% • 90% Illinois State Board of Education “Educator Supply and Demand in Illinois: 2011 Annual Report” Boser, U. (2011). Teacher diversity matters: A state-by-state analysis of teachers of color. Washington, DC: Center for American Progress.

  13. Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students and Common Core: Higher Academic Expectations • ALL teachers are language teachers • Little mention of ELLs and second language acquisition • Bilingualism and biliteracy are not prioritized as part of the definition of college and career success.

  14. Common Core and Language-Focused Mathematics Excerpts from Margo Gottlieb and Gisela Ernst-Slavit (2013): Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms: Promoting Content and Language Learning. Sage publications: Thousand Oaks, CA

  15. Word/Phrase Level “T: How do we find out mean? That’s another one of those multi-meaning words isn’t it? Am I talking about an attitude when I’m talking about the mean for numbers? S: No T: Whether someone is nice or mean— S: No T: What am I talking about…I’m looking for the mean value…” *Ernst-Slavit and Mason (2011) as quoted by Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2013) “Academic Language: A Foundation for Academic Success in Mathematics” p.11

  16. Challenges of Word Problems • Same pronoun is used to refer to different subjects Suppose you and three friends buy a large pizza. You each pay with a $5 bill. The pizza costs $12.75. You will also pay $0.83 tax on the pizza. How much change will you and your friends get? *Houghton Mifflin’s Math Central, 2001, p.287, as quoted by Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2013) “Academic Language: A Foundation for Academic Success in Mathematics” p.8

  17. Complex Sentence Structures • Prepositions 6 divided by 12 is ½ (or 0.5). 6 divided into 12 is 2. • On Saturday, 203 children came to the swimming pool. On Sunday, 128 children came. How many more children came to the pool on Saturday than on Sunday? *Excerpt from Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2013) “Academic Language: A Foundation for Academic Success in Mathematics” p.12 *Gottlieb and Ernst-Slavit (2013) “Academic Language: A Foundation for Academic Success in Mathematics” p.10 and 12

  18. What is Linguistically Responsive Instruction? • Understanding the Difference between Social versus Academic Language. • Intentional language development across the four domains of speaking, listening, reading, and writing • Understanding Language transfer.

  19. Examples of Spanish Cognates for Fractions Unit *Excerpt from Ernst-Slavit, Gottlieb and Slavit (2013) “Who Needs Fractions?”Academic Language in Diverse Classrooms. Promoting Content and Language Learning. p.93

  20. “If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.” ― John Dewey (1944)

  21. Why does this matter for teacher preparation? • A significant number of children in Illinois classrooms currently are and will be English language learners • Young English language learners bring to teaching and learning distinct knowledge/approaches to learning as well instructional needs

  22. Young English language learners: Cognitive and Language Development: Young Bilinguals Shown to Advantage Monolinguals in Cognitive Development Language Syntactic and morphological awareness tasks Metalinguistic awareness • Some non-verbal executive functioning skills • Development of Theory of Mind

  23. Young English Language Learners: Literacy Development For ALL children For children growing up with more than one language This relationship applies to both languages Involves the inter-connections between the languages • Literacy development bears strong relationship to cognitive and language development

  24. ELLs- Learning Needs Growing up with two languages has very distinct implications across developmental domains; in consequence bilingual children bring unique resources and needs to the classroom.

  25. ELLs- Teaching Needs • Understanding of culture and individual experience as mediating approaches to learning; recognizing that all children are embedded in families and communities. • Understanding curriculum content, instructional planning, and instructional design predicated on developmental needs of English language learners • Repertoire of effective instructional strategies, methods and approaches that encourage the learning of both content and languages. • Ability to modify learning environments to support linguistically diverse students to use effective verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual communication in English (ESL and bilingual teachers) and the child’s home language (bilingual and dual language

  26. CCSS and ELLs Take a minute to review one of the standards in your handout---what potential challenges do you envision they may hold for DLLs?

  27. How is this CC standard different? • CC.K.L.5.d • Distinguish shades of meaning among verbs describing the same general action(e.g. walk, march, strut, prance) by acting out the meanings • It hints at pedagogical strategy (acting out meaning) that can facilitate learning as well as suggests alternative ways of gauging students’ knowledge.

  28. CCSS and ELLs: Potential Challenges • An emphasis on English academic language and vocabulary. • Greater stress on using different types of text (fiction and informational texts; narrative and expository text); and kinds of visual or symbolic representation of concepts (words, tables, diagrams) to build knowledge and produce evidence of understanding • No explicit support to teachers regarding what these enhanced demands imply for ELLs; • Little or no consideration of how teachers may utilize pedagogical adaptations to help ELLs successfully meet these new demands

  29. What are the teacher-preparation needs attached to CCSS and ELLs? • Teachers need to understand and be able to respond to: • Language Progressions • Language Demands • Language Scaffolds • Language Supports • Santos, M., Darling-Hammond, L. & Cheuk, T. (n.d.). Teacher development to support English language learners in the context of Common Core Standards. Available at http://ell.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/academic-papers/10-Santos%20LDH%20Teacher%20Development%20FINAL.pdf

  30. Contact Information Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro, PhD Research and Policy Associate Latino Policy Forum rvnavarro@latinopolicyforum.org Thank you to the Joyce Foundation for making this work possible.

  31. Contact Information Luisiana Melendez, Ph.D. Clinical Associate Professor Director Bilingual/ESL Certificate Program lmelendez@erikson.edu

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