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Preparing to Educate English Language Learners Louise C. Wilkinson Distinguished Professor Syracuse University, USA (lwilkin@syr.edu)

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Title: Preparing to Educate English Language Learners Louise C. Wilkinson Distinguished Professor Syracuse University, USA (lwilkin@syr.edu)


1
Preparing to Educate English Language
LearnersLouise C. WilkinsonDistinguished
ProfessorSyracuse University, USA
(lwilkin_at_syr.edu)
  • The School of Foreign Languages and The School
    of Special Education and Early Childhood
    Education
  • East China Normal University, Shanghai
  • May 19, 2009

2
Overview
  • US national law and English Language Learners
  • Who are English language learners in the US?
  • Academic Language Proficiency The key to school
    success
  • Preparing to Educate English Language Learners
  • Cross-cutting themes
  • The whole child as learner
  • Implications for teachers and other educators
  • Audience questions and discussion

3
No Child Left Behind 2001-NCLB
  • Established standards for schools and states
    penalties for falling short
  • Accountability
  • Choices for students and parents
  • Putting Reading First
  • Teacher Quality Provision
  • 2014 No more gaps
  • Legislation to be re-authorized

4
NCLB The National Assessment for Educational
Progress-NAEP
  • Since 2001 and the passage of NCLB, NAEP results
    are based on a national sample obtained from
    aggregating the samples from each state.

5
NAEP
  • In 2005
  • 31 of students in grade 4 read at or above the
    proficient level
  • 31 of students in grade 4 read below the basic
    level
  • In 2009 The patterns continue.

6
The Score Gap
Grade 4 White average score minus Hispanic
average score
27
1992
29
2000
28
2003
Average score gap in 2009, 2005 did not differ
significantly from those of 2003 or 2000.
7
Gaps Persist
  • Especially resistant to improvement
    Significantly lower achievement for students who
    are English Language Learners (ELLs)
  • For reading achievement 4 8th-grade ELLs
    Proficient/advanced 20 of former ELLs

8
ELLs NCLB
  • Defined by limited proficiency in an area that
    directly affects learning and assessment
  • Membership is expected to be temporary
  • ELLs face unique set of learning challenges
  • -learning content-related knowledge and
    skills that meet state standards
  • -simultaneously acquiring a second language
    when their first language is not fully developed
  • -likely to have to demonstrate their learning
    on an assessment in the second language

9
Therefore
  • ELLs present a unique set of challenges to
  • Teachers
  • Administrators
  • Assessment systems

10
ELLs in the U.S. Who Are They?
11
Who Are English Language Learners?
  • Comprise one of the fastest-growing groups among
    the school-aged population in US
  • 5.1M classified as ELLs (probably 9 M)
  • ELL school-aged population has grown by more than
    169 from 1979 to 2003 (vs. 12 growth in
    general)
  • 40 of school-aged population in 2030
  • Over 400 different home languages
  • Spanish is predominant (79)

12
Who are English Language Learners?
  • Some states have begun to look at the performance
    of ELLs on State tests after they have gained
    proficiency in English.
  • These reports show that some ELL students do well
    in school.
  • But, many students who have lost the formal ELL
    designation continue to struggle with academic
    text, content, and language

13
Who are English Language Learners?
  • Largest and fastest-growing ELL population
  • Students who immigrated before kindergarten
  • U.S. born children of immigrants
  • Compared to native English-speaking peers
  • On Grade 4 NAEP, ELLs were 1/4th as likely to
    score proficient or above in Reading and 1/3rd as
    likely in Math
  • Less likely to score proficient on state tests

14
Latino Students
  • By the year 2030, 40 of US public school
    students will be English second language learners
    (ELLs)
  • The majority will continue to be Spanish speaking
  • Despite intensive efforts since 2001, when the US
    No Child Left Behind law was passed, ELLs
    continue to lag behind in their reading
    comprehension, writing, and math achievement
    (United States Department of Education , 2008)
  • This lag increases as grade level increases

15
José needs help!!
  • José, age 9 years old, attends a low-wealth
    school, and is repeating grade 3. He is an ELL,
    but one who is a struggling reader and writer.
  • According to his teacher, Jose is a
    perfectionist He doesn't want to make any
    mistakes.

16
Josés Literacy Learning Status
  • Alphabetic knowledge
  • Knows all letter names except y and x
  • y confused with i
  • Phonological Awareness Phonics
  • Able to blend one- and two-syllable words
  • Able to segment words into onset and rime
  • Unable to clap out syllables of words
  • Unable to do phonemic segmentation of words
  • Difficulties applying phonemic orthographic
    patterns in decoding and spelling (long and short
    vowels, silent e)

17
  • Vocabulary
  • Scope of vocabulary knowledge limited
  • Has significant problems in understanding
    multiple meanings
  • Oral Reading Comprehension
  • Difficulty answering factual questions about
    passages
  • Difficulty making appropriate inferences from
    passages
  • Writing
  • Labored due to limited vocabulary and difficulty
    with spelling
  • Little planning evident tends to just write
    and stop

18
And So José Received Intensive Supplemental
Reading Writing Instruction for 47 Sessions
  • But, is supplemental reading writing
    instruction sufficient for José to achieve
    necessary levels of language proficiency for
    school success?

19
Why Insufficient?
  • Underlying causes of literacy problems are
    related to the
  • Phoneme level
  • Inadequate ability to segment words into
    phonemes (Joses problem as well)
  • Word level
  • Inadequate word recognition -- Related to
    insufficient vocabulary knowledge (José problems
    also)
  • Discourse level
  • Inadequate knowledge of different narrative
    expository text structures -- Seriously affects
    reading comprehension (José has problems here
    also)

20
Implications for Achieving Adequate Language
Proficiency for School Success
  • Little attention has been paid to how more
    literate sentence-level grammar enhances reading
    comprehension writing.
  • Failure to coordinate sentence-level grammar with
    meaning may be a significant contributor to
    literacy problems.
  • Instructional evidence is needed on
  • How the integration of these more advanced
    aspects of language proficiency significantly
    enhance reading and writing for students like
    José

21
Four Examples of Josés Dictated Sentence Writing
Over 47 Sessions of Supplemental Reading
Writing Instruction
Session Sentence
8 Thats the chimney that Santa goes down
10 The cat went in the laundry
12 I need scissors, crayons, and tape to make a caterpillar
25 I like those words pea pods. When you open them, green little balls come out
33 Yummy, I like eggs. The turtle has to be careful because if somebody touches the eggs they can break
22
  • From Josés sentence writing, there examples of
    more complex syntax (or flickers of more
    literate expression. )

What evidence is there for José having more
potential than meets the eye?
23
Grade 3 Language of Science
  • From far out in space, Earth looks like a blue
    ball. Since water covers three-fourths of the
    Earths surface, blue is the color we see most.
    The continents look brown, like small islands
    floating in the huge, blue sea. White clouds wrap
    around the Earth like a light blanket. The Earth
    is shaped like a sphere, or a ball. It is 25,000
    miles around! It would take more than a year to
    walk around the whole planet. A spaceship can fly
    around the widest part of the sphere in only 90
    minutes.Even though spaceships have traveled to
    the Moon, people cannot visit the Moon without
    special suits. (From Outer Space by Meish
    Goldfish)
  • http//www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/marketing/sfesl/t
    ests/grade3.htmlreading2

24
Grade 4 Language of Math (Massachusetts
Comprehensive Assessment System)
From Martiniello (2008)
25
Grade 5 Language of History
  • The Mayan Indians lived in Mexico for thousands
    of years before the Spanish arrived in the 1500s.
    The Maya were an intelligent, culturally rich
    people whose achievements were many. They had
    farms, beautiful palaces, and cities with many
    buildings. The Mayan people knew a lot about
    nature and the world around them. This knowledge
    helped them to live a better life than most
    people of that time, because they could use it to
    make their lives more comfortable and rewarding.
    Knowledge about tools and farming, for instance,
    made their work easier and more productive.
    (From The Mystery of the Maya)
  • http//www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/marketing/sfesl/t
    ests/grade5.htmlreading2

26
Embedding Multiple Clauses
  • The person I most admire is my mother because she
    works really hard to give me and my brother
    everything she can.
  • Clause types Relative, adverbial causal,
    adverbial purpose, nominal direct object
  • Ese dia yo aprendi que uno tiene que balerse por
    si mismo para lograr lo que quiere y poder hacer
    todo lo que se propone.
  • Clause types Nominal direct object, adverbial
    purpose, additive coordinate, relative

26
27
Academic Language Proficiency The Key to School
Success
28
The Increasingly Complex Puzzle of Academic
Success (Snow et al., 2007)
  • Must know academic language of texts
    curriculum, have motivation, know what it takes
    to succeed, relative freedom from family problems
  • Success primarily related to oral language
    literacy skills

29
The Specialized Register for Talking Thinking
in Classrooms (Cummins, 2000 Francis, 2006 Gee,
2004)
Academic Language Use (Specialized Varieties
More Literate)
Everyday Language Use (Vernacular Varieties
More Oral)
Secondary Discourse Abilities
Face-Face Conversational Abilities
Advanced Literacy-related Language Abilities
Primary Discourse Abilities
Metacognitive Metalinguistic Awareness
Strategies
Does Not Predict Academic Achievement
Associated with Academic Achievement
Are independent, but interdependent (Cummins,
2000)
30
Academic Language Features
  • Lexical/Semantic Features General academic
    meaning, special academic meaning, derivations
  • Grammatical Features Independent, dependent,
    complex, and coordinate clauses
  • Global Discourse Organizational Features
    Comparison, description, argumentation,
    paraphrase, sequening

31
EVERYDAY ORAL LANGUAGE REGISTER (OLR) ACADEMIC LANGUAGE REGISTERS (ALR)
Vernacular varieties that are more oral Specialized varieties that are more literate
Describes primary language abilities Describes secondary language abilities and advanced literacy-related language abilities
Typical of face-to-face conversation Typical of the language of schooling, including the language of textbooks and composition
Insufficient for academic achievement Necessary for academic achievement
32
Academic Language Proficiency
  • Academic language is the Key Organizer
  • Development of academic language
  • -fundamental to academic success in all domains
  • -is the primary source of ELLs difficulties with
    academic content at all ages and grades
  • -remains a challenge after students achieve
    proficiency on state language proficiency tests
  • -affects ELLs performance on large-scale
    assessments

33
Academic Language Proficiency
  • The key role that academic language plays in
    determining students success
  • Good conversational English skills do not
    indicate adequate academic language skills
  • Primary middle school students ELLs show mean
    vocabulary scores below the 20th percentile are
    not

34
Academic Language Elements
  • Vocabulary knowledge (depth and breadth)
  • Depth knowing multiple meanings, both common
    and uncommon, for a given word
  • Breadth knowing the meanings of many words,
    including multiple words for the same, or
    related, concepts
  • Written vocabulary (distinct from oral)
  • Complex sentence structures and syntax
  • Structure of argument, academic discourse, and
    expository texts

35
Instruction for ELLs
  • Reading is fundamental to the development of
  • content-area knowledge and academic success.
  • To be effective, educators must have a clear
    understanding of the specific sources of
    difficulty or weakness for individual students
    and groups of students.

36
Instruction for ELLs General
  • ELLs often lack academic language necessary for
    comprehending and analyzing text
  • The great majority of ELLs experiencing reading
    difficulties struggle with the skills related to
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary
  • Comprehension
  • These areas are mutually interdependent

37
Instruction for ELLs Reading
  • ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive
    instruction in phonological awareness and phonics
    in order to build decoding skills
  • These skills are highly correlated across
    alphabetic
  • languages (i.e., correlations above .9)
  • K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase
    opportunities for ELLs to develop advanced, rich
    vocabulary knowledge

38
Instruction for ELLs Reading
  • Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must teach
    ELLs with strategies and knowledge to comprehend
    and analyze challenging narrative and expository
    texts
  • Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs
  • reading fluency must focus on vocabulary
  • development and increased exposure to print

39
Instruction for ELLs Math
  • Academic language is as central to mathematics as
    it is to other academic areas
  • and is a significant source of difficulty for
    many ELLs who struggle with mathematics
  • Early, explicit, and intensive instruction and
    intervention in basic mathematics concepts and
    skill
  • Academic language support to understand and solve
    the word problems used for mathematics assessment
    and instruction

40
ELLs Assessment of Content Knowledge
  • Assessments of content knowledge are influenced
    by students language proficiency
  • Assessments with the most linguistically
    challenging content show the largest performance
    gaps between ELLs and native English speakers
  • Necessary to separate language proficiency from
    content knowledge in some domains (mathematics)
    than in others (reading language arts)
  • Can appropriate accommodations for ELLs address
    their linguistic requirements?

41
The Gap in Teacher Quality for ELLs
  • US national law Not resulted in US teachers
    being adequately prepared to teach ELLs
  • Were just putting teachers out there who arent
    prepared to work with ELLs in their classrooms
    (D. Short, Center for Applied Linguistics, 2009.)

42
Preparing to Educate English Language Learners
  • M. Shatz (U. of Michigan) L. Wilkinson
    (Syracuse U.) August, Bailey, Bedore,
    Bialystock, Brisk, B. Conboy, S. Ervin-Tripp,
    Goldenberg, Kohnert, Peña, Reyes, Reese, Rymes,
    Westby
  • Practice-based components integrating knowledge
    of language and the development as related to
    ELLs learning of language and literacy
  • Guilford Press Challenges in Language Literacy
    Series, March 2010

43
Cross-Cutting Themes
  • L2 learning benefits from L1 learning
  • Phonological awareness is important in all
    languages
  • The foundation of literacy is oral language
  • Opportunities to use L2 need to be meaningful
  • Bilinguals are different from monolinguals
  • Families are important to the educational process
  • Mutual respect guides learning

44
The Whole Child as Learner
  • Bootstrapping or helping ones own efforts in an
    area by using whatever skills one ahs in other
    areas
  • Language skill affects every realm of social and
    cognitive life
  • Children are not blank slates ready to be
    inscribed with a dominant cultures standard
    practices
  • All children are prepared to learn language(s)

45
Teacher as Guide for Learning
  • Recognize or learn differences between English
    and childrens L1 and exploit these for learning.
  • Use relevant opportunities to teach language even
    when teaching another content area.
  • Create interactive activities that engage ELLS
    with more proficient speakers of English.
  • Encourage ELLs to use L1, and L1 learning
    strategies in learning L2 as appropriate.

46
Teacher as Guide for Learning
  • Designate ELLs to serve as teachers of their
    language and culture to other students, drawing
    upon ELLs funds of knowledge.
  • Recognize that code-switching indexes skills use
    it to help the child see appropriate uses of L1
    and L2
  • Relate English Language Development classes to
    instructional goals and classroom work.
  • Recognize that ELLs are different from
    monolinguals

47
Teacher as Guide for Learning
  • Maintain intervention beyond the conversational
    stage emphasize mastery of academic language
  • Tailor lessons and interventions to students
    both levels of proficiency---L1 and L2
  • Use creative teamwork among all educational
    professionals that ELL students encounter
  • Encourage productive home-school relationships
  • Continue to learn! Professional development

48
  • Until I read the language development material
    about Academic Language Proficiency for English
    learner students it didnt occur to me that
    learning a second language involves much more
    than being able to communicate socially. As we
    have seen with the multiple components and layers
    of language development necessary to master one
    language, achieving academic proficiency for a
    single language seems to involve learning two
    languages - social and academic. (Educator-in
    training-2008)

49
  • When we consider what English learner students
    encounter in terms of being immersed in a
    different culture, the likelihood that their
    native language is spoken at home, and available
    resources in the English language, the students
    task of becoming socially and academically
    proficient in English seems daunting. This seems
    like it would include more than learning another
    two languages with the necessity of
    translating the concepts, applying them.

50
  • Although I taught elementary school for several
    years I never realized the vast difference
    between these two registers. The expectation that
    students would comprehend and produce language
    with academic vocabulary was almost a given it
    would happen naturally. This is of course, is not
    the case with English learners and students with
    speech/language impairments.

51
Conclusion
  • We most need teachers who are capable of
    accelerating the learning of students who
    experience the greatest difficulty acquiring
    literacy" (Dozier, Johnston, Rogers, 2006, p.
    11).
  • The quality of classroom instruction, by far, is
    the most significant element in formal education.

52
  • To improve ELL learning, we must provide
    innovative ways to educate pre-service teachers
    about the the unique challenges and strengths of
    ELLs, and how best to ensure their learning.
  • Further, we must provide future teachers with
    paths to develop their own effective pedagogy
    with ELLs.
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