December 2004/January 2005
| Volume 62 | Number 4
Educating Language Learners
Amy M. Azzam
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Deborah Short and Jana Echevarria
Because most English language learners receive instruction in content-area classes, teachers of these classes need to understand the varying backgrounds of ELLs and their different levels of conversational and academic English skills. The authors have developed a research-based model for effectively delivering sheltered instruction to ELLs in mainstream classrooms. This model identifies effective strategies for promoting academic English literacy among ELLs. Strategies include identifying the language demands of the content course, planning language objectives for all lessons and making them explicit to students, emphasizing academic vocabulary development, identifying and strengthening background knowledge, and reviewing vocabulary and content concepts.
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Yu Ren Dong
Research in second language acquisition has shown that adjusting classroom discussions, textbook reading, and written activities to the language proficiencies of second language learners triggers second language acquisition in subject matter classrooms. Second language researchers find that subject matter teachers should systematically teach discipline-specific language, pay attention to the functional use of language in classroom discussions, and use writing as a learning tool to promote language development. Subject matter teachers should also identify the language that students specifically need to know, including the language structures and essential vocabulary that a teaching unit requires, and integrate these topics into daily instruction. The author shows how two high school biology teachers and a high school social studies teacher effectively taught subject matter by integrating language and content.
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Sandy Cutshall
Although the United States is clearly a melting pot, the country has generally held monolingualism in English as the gold standard of U.S. citizenship for immigrants. Fewer than one in 10 students at U.S. colleges major in foreign languages, and only 9 percent learn the most widely spoken languages in the world, such as Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Urdu. Instructional time in foreign languages has also decreased—particularly in schools serving minority populations—directly as a result of NCLB. The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) issued a report comparing the United States with 22 other nations on approaches to language learning: Most of the countries studied require a second—or a third—language in elementary school, whereas in the United States, the majority of students do not start studying a foreign language until age 14. 2005: The Year of Languages will focus the U. S. public's attention on the benefits of being multilingual and will target language issues, such as language policy, higher education, language advocacy, heritage languages, and early language learning.
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Donna Christian, Ingrid U. Pufahl and Nancy C. Rhodes
Numerous reports and articles have decried the mediocrity of U.S. students' foreign language skills and have called for improved language education. One study that looked at foreign language education in 19 countries suggests several characteristics of successful foreign language programs: starting early, providing an articulated framework, treating language as a core subject, having strong supportive leaders, focusing on professional development, actively promoting proficiency, and nourishing heritage languages. Both Europe and Canada take language learning seriously: The European Union's 2004–2006 action plan asserts that multilingualism is a basic skill for all European citizens. Canada's action plan for foreign language education promotes the use of English and French, the two official languages.
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Audrey L. Heining-Boynton
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Christine Rossell
The author's research indicates that instructional programs that teach English language learners in English are more effective than programs that provide more instruction in the students' native language. Following the passage of Proposition 227 in California, which outlawed bilingual education as the default assignment for English language learners, the author conducted extensive research in classrooms to determine how schools were handling the switch to more sheltered English immersion. She found that many programs that had been identified as “bilingual education” closely resembled sheltered immersion even before the state mandate. Her previous observations had confirmed this mislabeling in other states. Her research on schools that had dismantled bilingual education showed a small but significant positive effect on reading and math achievement. She concludes that teaching students in English yields benefits, and that a sheltered environment is preferable but not necessary to students' success.
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Stephen Krashen
A new urban legend claims, “As a result of the state dropping bilingual education, test scores in California skyrocketed.” Krashen disputes this theory, pointing out that other factors offer more logical explanations of California's recent improvements in SAT-9 scores. He discusses research on the effects of California's Proposition 227, which mandated that schools move from bilingual education programs to immersion programs, and concludes that this research offers no convincing evidence that the law had beneficial effects. Krashen also reviews research suggesting that bilingual education programs promote English language learners' acquisition of English literacy as well as their subject-matter knowledge.
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Jill Wu
The ongoing debate between advocates of bilingual education and advocates of English-only instruction often fails to acknowledge classroom realities. The author, who has taught native Spanish speaking students in a variety of settings, draws on her experience to explain that not all bilingual programs are the same and that no program will guarantee success for all students in all settings. She describes her experience in a dual language immersion school as the ideal and most natural setting for students to become literate in both their native language and English. Subsequent experiences teaching 1st, 4th, and 5th grade English language learners convinced her that students acquire a second language most easily if they develop literacy skills and content knowledge in their native language, have opportunities to interact with English-speaking peers, and learn with students of different ability levels.
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Brian Bielenberg and Lily Wong Fillmore
To make sense of the complex information taught in the upper elementary grades—and to understand the language that increasingly appears in high-stakes tests—students must be proficient in academic English. English language learners are at a serious disadvantage. Two word problems in mathematics illustrate the difficulties that these students can encounter in instruction and in tests: synonyms, conditional constructions, prepositional phrases, and pronoun references, to name a few. Mastering academic English requires instructional activities that actively promote language development in the context of learning intellectually challenging content.
Project Challenge, a math program in Massachusetts funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, provided those activities. State test results showed that English language learners who participated in the program outperformed students from many high-performing districts in the state. School leaders can help improve the poor performance of English language learners by recognizing the role that academic English plays in test performance and classroom learning and by encouraging and providing opportunities for all teachers to participate in professional development activities that address this issue.
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Samina Hadi-Tabassum
Hadi-Tabassum believes having a separate life context for each language she learned in childhood enabled her to switch easily among five different tongues. She states that the success of dual immersion bilingual programs is largely dependent on whether they immerse students in each of the involved languages separately and help students have a discrete context for the use of each language. It is essential that students and teachers work exclusively in Spanish or exclusively in English, for example, during certain times of day or for certain content areas. Although all subject matter should be taught at least in partially in both languages, class discussions, assignments, and materials—right down to daily agendas—should never mix the two. The author gives an overview of two different theories of how two languages are developed. The language independence theory states that each language develops and resides in its own separate area of the brain, whereas the language interdependence theory assumes two or more languages develop with a common underlying cognitive structure.
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Kathryn J. Lindholm-Leary
A key to closing the achievement gap between students who come to school speaking a language other than English and native English speakers is adoption of two-way bilingual immersion (TWBI) programs. The bilingual immersion approach fosters excellent academic achievement and positive school attitudes in students of any ethnicity who participate. It also makes students comfortable and competent in other cultures. Lindholm-Leary details the key features that make up different TWBI programs, notably the amount of instructional time spent in English and the time spent on the target language at various grades. Convincing evidence shows favorable outcomes of TWBI programs in terms of true oral and reading/writing bilingualism, high academic achievement comparable to or better than that of students in English-only curriculums, and improved attitudes toward studying and staying in school.
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Jeff Zwiers
Academic language—the set of words and phrases used to describe academic content and abstract thinking processes—is like a third language that English language learners must become comfortable with to succeed in school. Unlike social English, academic language does not develop naturally just by hearing and reading it. Zwiers outlines five strategies teachers can model and help English language learners master to recognize and comprehend academic language in different contexts: using context to guess meaning; recognizing words describing thinking skills; reading challenging but understandable material; speaking out in the new language; and conversing about academic topics.
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Judy Abrams and Julia Ferguson
The United Nations International School serves students from around the world. The authors, ESOL teachers at the school, describe students who bring a variety of gifts and learning needs to the school. These individual stories illustrate guidelines that the authors consider crucial to making a difference for language learners—for example, providing the appropriate level of second-language instruction, respecting cultural diversity and learning style, providing instruction in a context-rich environment, and giving students enough time to develop linguistic fluency.
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Jill Fitzgerald and Michael F. Graves
Scaffolded reading experiences provide a practical, research-based framework that teachers can use to support their English language learners. The Scaffolded Reading Experience framework consists of a set of pre-, during-, and postreading activities to use with any genre of texts. Prereading strategies include building background knowledge, providing text-specific knowledge, preteaching vocabulary and concepts, prequestioning and predicting, and using students' native language. During-reading strategies include silent reading, reading to students, and guided reading. Postreading strategies include discussion, building connections, and writing and/or artistic activities. The authors also discuss the complexities of reading in a new language and what teachers can do to help their English language learners master both reading and content.
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Douglas B. Reeves
Elementary English language learners at Harrington Elementary in Lynn, Massachusetts—whom Reeves interviewed—share their perspectives on learning English in elementary school, and give advice to teachers working with English language learners. Among the advice students give teachers are: don't worry so much as you teach us, be patient and repeat directions many times, “help us use English for play as well as study,” and remember that our parents may not understand English. Reeves shares a story of a child almost misplaced in special education because of language and cultural misunderstandings. He stresses that schools must help English language learners feel safe enough to speak out about their concerns.
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Kathleen Fay and Suzanne Whaley
Elementary teachers Fay and Whaley share anecdotes of how carefully listening to English language learners read—and discussing with them their errors and confusions—helps teachers better analyze such students' true language and reading abilities. They discuss the importance of spending time talking individually with each child learning to read in English. Teachers should select carefully which reading errors to point out, and teach broad comprehension strategies that will help students navigate many different kinds of texts. Fay and Whaley caution teachers against plunging into teaching a concept based on quick assumptions about what a student does or doesn't understand. Clear up miscommunications first, then teach.
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Catherine Little
A teacher draws lessons from her early school experiences as an immigrant to help her teach English language learners the ways and language of a new culture while helping them gain a sense of belonging in a school in which they are the minority.
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Tracy Gray and Steve Fleischman
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W. James Popham
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Thomas R. Hoerr
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Robert Sylwester
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Holly Highsmith Abrams
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Diane L. Jackson
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Naomi Thiers
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