Introduction to English Learners

1. Introduction to English Learners Dr. Julie Esparza Brown Portland State University jebrown@pdx.edu

2. AGENDA – Jan. 22, 2014 • Please make a name tent • Quick introductions • Quiz on Els • Jigsaw debrief on reading • Group 1: p. 97 – 101 • Group 2: p. 101 – 105 • Group 3: p. 105 – 108 • Group 4: p. 108 – 111 • Group 5: p. 111 – 115 • Group 6: p. 115 – 119 • Group 7: p. 119 – 124 • EL PPT Discussion

3. What’s in a Name? • Students who come from a home whose language is other than English are referred to by many names such as: • Limited English Proficient (LEP) • English Language Learners (ELL) • English Learners (EL) • English as a Second Language (ESL) Students • Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Students • Emerging Bilinguals (EB)

4. Numbers • More than 11 million students — one in every five - enrolled in U.S. schools speak a language other English which they have learned from their parents, guardians, family members and care-givers. • Approximately half of these students are classified as “LEP” meaning that their “limited English skills” prevent full and effective participation in educational programs designed for English proficient students.

5. Numbers (cont.) • The enrollment of Emerging Bilingual students in elementary and secondary schools increased from 2 million students to nearly 3.5 million students between school years 1989-1990 and 1997-1998. • This growth rate of more than 70 percent was more than five times the rate of growth for total elementary and secondary school enrollment. • In the following decade leading up to the 2008 presidential election, the Emerging Bilingual student population increased again by 53 percent to more than 5.3 million.3

6. Numbers (cont.) • This population growth is projected to continue, and the U.S. Department of Education predicts that Emerging Bilingual students will constitute one-quarter of the nation’s K-12 school enrollment by 2025.

7. Languages • The most common languages spoken by ELs are: • Spanish • Vietnamese • Arabic • Chinese • Hmong • Most of these students, contrary to popular belief, were born in the United States.

8. Who Are English Learners? • English Learners come from many cultural, racial and ethnic minority groups. • As a group, they are disproportionately poor. • They frequently attend schools that are underfunded, segregated and staffed by underprepared teachers. • Most of their parents have limited educational backgrounds. • They represent the most educationally needy group of students in our country. • ELs also have the highest dropout rates. • Our prisons are overpopulated by young men of color.

9. Often Mis-Identified • Because of all of the previous factors, they are often over-identified as a child with a disability and placed into special education programs.

10. Five Things to Know About Your Students To Determine Their Needs • Cultural background • Language knowledge/profile • Life experiences • Educational experiences • Personal interests

11. Let’s Talk About Culture

12. 1. Culture • “Culture is acquired knowledge people use to interpret experiences and generate behavior” (Spradley, 1979). • “Socially shared symbolic and meaning systems that become embedded in objects, organizations, and people” (Lechner & Boli, 205). • “Each person is a junction point for an infinite number of partially overlapping cultures” (Strauss & Quinn, 1998).

13. 1. Culture: What You Can Do • Learn about your students’ culturally-mediated beliefs and patterns of behavior. • Determine points of potential conflict with U.S. school culture. • Create opportunities in the curriculum and school activities to build two-way bridges between the two cultures. • It is essential all students be allowed to demonstrate and build on their own funds of knowledge.

15. Reading Passage “Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape… What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong, but he thought he could break it.” • What is this story about?????

17. Learn Families Beliefs: Some General Cultural Views of Disabilities • Native American: • Causes of illness, misfortune or disability may be attributable to supernatural or natural causes. • In some tribes, the name of a child may be changed in order to confuse malevolent spirits assumed to be causing sickness or harm. • African American: • Religion and beliefs about illness/disability are intertwined. • Disability may be seen as bad luck or misfortune or as the result of “sins of the father” • Typically less prejudice towards people with disabilities.

18. Learn Families Beliefs: Some General Cultural Views of Disabilities • Latino: • Birth of a child with disability can sometimes be interpreted as a curse put on the child by someone, the effects of an evil spirit God’s punishment or beliefs that life is full of tragedy. • Use of items to ward off evil spirits. • Social stigma • Asian: • Mother’s failure to follow prescribed dietary recommendations • Divine punishment for sins or moral transgressions • Disability traditionally creates family embarrassment, shame, and stigma

19. Learn Families Beliefs: Some General Cultural Views of Disabilities • Middle Eastern • Guilt and shame are common feelings for families • Mother held responsible for birth of a child with a disability • Mothers often feel they are being punished for something they did wrong before or during pregnancy • Stereotypes may limit the family’s willingness to take the child into public

20. A Posture of Cultural Reciprocity • This means that both sides seek to find a new, middle space that allows for the melding of both perspectives. • This may mean that you support the family seeking help from their shaman, curandera or other traditional healer while also seeking support from professionals recommended by schools and medical professionals.

21. Remember… • Do not stereotype - hypothesize; check your assumptions with each family’s beliefs and worldviews.

22. Role of Home Culture • School teams must assess how culturally responsive they are to the diverse students in their schools. • What steps have been taken in developing a process of cultural reciprocity (Harry, Kalyanpur, & Day, 1999a; Harry, Rueda, & Kalyanpur, 1999b; Warger, 2001) in school policies and by the school personnel at all levels? • What is the curriculum and does it reect the diverse experiences of the students? • Are students’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds viewed as resources and funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Ne, & Gonzalez, 1992)? Source: WIDA

23. “…the school life should grow gradually out of the home life; …it should take up and continue the activities with which the child is already familiar in the home…It is the business of the school to deepen and extend his sense of the values bound up in his home life.” John Dewey 1897

24. 2. Language • First Language Acquisition: It is helpful to gain information on the experiences that ELLs have had in first language development from birth until they entered school (Kuhl, 2004; Kuhl, 2010; Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2011; Pinker, 1994).

25. 2. Language • Gathering this information about whether a student’s language development was progressing typically before they entered the school setting will help educators understand whether any issues are developmental or related to language acquisition. • If children were experiencing some delays in their home language (e.g., not understood by parents, not uttering first words until well past what would be considered typical) prior to entering school, this would indicate a developmental delay rather than a language acquisition issue.

26. 2. Second Language Acquisition • Students acquiring a new language will go through various stages of language acquisition. The time that students spend in each stage varies greatly. • Developing proficiency for social purposes in this new, additional language depends on many factors including: • similarity of the language to English, • amount of prior exposure to English, • and temperament such as shyness or an outgoing personality. • As students enter school, the focus shifts from social language prociency to development of academic language prociency (Bailey, 2007; Gottlieb, 2006; Krashen, 1982; Schleppegrell, 2001). • Source: WIDA

27. 2. Language Knowledge/Profile • Know the English language and native language proficiencies of each of your EL students. • Where do you get this information? • Identify appropriate teaching strategies for the proficiency stages of your students. • Identify appropriate ways for students to respond and demonstrate their knowledge based on their language proficiency stage.

28. 2. Language Knowledge/Profile • Remember, EL students’ language reservoir is the sum of L1 and L2! • Parents can offer crucial information to determine if first language acquisition was within normal developmental timeline. • Many U.S. born students (second generation) may have heard both English and their native language from birth.

29. 2. Language Knowledge/Profile • Learn about the mix of languages your students hear at home. • Gathering this information about kindergarteners and first-graders, who are less likely to explain their language backgrounds to teachers on their own, can be useful to both ELL and mainstream teachers.

30. Stages of Language Development • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoca1Ou_6TE

31. 2. Language/Curriculum • The curriculum must teach the full range of English language competencies (grammatical and structural, sociolinguistic, pragmatic, discursive, and semantic) while focusing on language for social interaction and on language for academic achievement. • Students should have "safe-space" opportunities not just to read and write this language, but to practice the spoken language of academic conversations so they can participate confidently in classroom interactions and collaborative learning groups. Source: Rance-Roney, J. (2009). Educational Leadership

32. What Conditions Foster Bilingual Development? • Studies indicate the use of an additive second language acquisition model (where the L1 is strongly maintained) improves the child’s ability to learn a second language and has positive cognitive effects (Bhatnagar, 1980; Lambert, 1973; Long & Padilla, 1970). • A subtractivelanguage acquisition model (first language deteriorates) leads to negative language and cognitive outcomes.

33. 3. Life Experiences • What is the literacy level of the parents? Siblings? Who can help support schoolwork at home? • Where has the child lived? Were they rural or urban settings? What are likely life skills the child learned in these settings? How can we build on these? • What responsibilities does the child have at home? • What is the family’s goal for their child? • What is the cultural group the family identifies and interacts with?

34. 4. Educational Experiences • What is the child’s school experience? Have they had preschool? If so, in what language? • How many years of formal instruction has the child had? • Have they ever been instructed in their native language? If so, for how long. What was the bilingual program model? • What does a review of the child’s educational records reveal about attendance, mobility, achievement, motivation, etc.?

35. 5. Personal Interests • What do you know about your student? • What does the child like to do in their free time? • What motivates their learning? • Do they prefer to work alone or with others? • Do they prefer to work in a quiet environment or can they tolerate some noise • What is their occupational goal? • What is at least one strength of the child?

36. Multi-tiered Support • Now that you have a good knowledge base about your students, if an EL student is struggling, ask yourself if the reason may likely be: • Lack of appropriate differentiation of the curriculum based on their background • A within-child problem because the curriculum is both linguistically and culturally appropriate

37. Response to Intervention (RTI) • At the heart of RTI is the promise to support struggling students to improve their academic performance by providing effective instruction. • Thus, RTI has been called a “promising practice” for English Learners (ELs). • RTI has shifted the spotlight from referring and placing students into special education to instead pinpointing their academic struggles and generating solutions.

38. Core Features of RTI • Universal screening • Data-driven decision-making by problem-solving teams of educators • Tiered levels of support (increasingly intensive support as needed) • Evidence-based instruction delivered with fidelity to the program • Progress monitoring Are any of these problematic when student is an EL?

39. What Adjustments Are Needed in an RTI Process for EL Students? How do we ensure RTI is culturally and linguistically appropriate so it meets the needs of ALL learners?

41. RTI for ELs • Intensive instruction • Must include an oracy component for Els • 5% of each subgroup may need instruction at this intensity Interventions Interventions Interventions Supplant core supplement core support core • Core plus strategic, evidence-based intervention; a “double dose;” • Must include an oracy component for Els • 15% of each subgroup may need instruction at this intensity Tier 1: Universal Tier 2: Strategic Tier 3: Intensive • Appropriate, effective and evidence-based core curriculum and instruction for ALL students. • For English Learners, ELD is provided and is a core subject – NOT an intervention. • 80% of each student group are successful.

42. “In each tier of the RTI process, instruction and intervention must be tailored to meet the unique needs of English learners.” Echevarria& Vogt 2010

43. Closing Thought ❝Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.❞‒Rita Mae Brown