Many schools now understand that the success of their English language learners is crucial to the success of any school initiative. In the past, initiatives were designed with the majority of students in mind; any accommodations needed for this subset of the larger school population were considered secondary. Placing English learners at the center of schoolwide efforts ensures that the conditions they need to learn are in place. Happily, these same conditions—three of which we discuss here—help all students thrive.
1. Pair High Expectations with Culturally Responsive Teaching
Gloria Ladson-Billings's pioneering framework for culturally responsive instruction has helped educators move from a deficit-based model to one that cultivates the assets students bring. In a similar vein, other researchers have pointed out that acting as a "warm demander" and communicating high expectations helps students see their potential—and conveys respect for each learner. Teachers who communicate learning targets and success criteria provide students a clear destination and the pathway to get there.
Warm demanders praise accomplishments and effort but avoid gratuitous praise that sends a message that nothing much was expected from the student anyway ("Good try"). A teacher who says, "You worked hard at this, but didn't get the result you wanted. What will you do next to be successful?" demonstrates that revision is part of the learning process.
We must pair high expectations with culturally mediated curriculum. This requires that we know our students and their experiences. Every learner deserves to see him- or herself in the curricular materials and discourse of the school, and school learning that is devoid of cultural relevance can send the message that what's learned at home is unimportant. Sociologist and social worker Jane Addams noted 100 years ago that ignoring a child's cultural context "loosens them from the authority and control of their parents," leaving the child rudderless in "the perilous business of living."
Family and community connections are invaluable in developing culturally responsive initiatives. For example, the student body at the school where we work includes Muslim students whose families originated in several African countries. Parents, educators, and religious leaders from the Muslim community have acted as informal advisors for many of our school's initiatives, such as our annual student-run Day of Understanding (see our column in the April 2019 issue of Educational Leadership).
2. Attend to Social and Emotional Needs
The learning sciences have collectively demonstrated that social and emotional conditions influence academic learning. Once relegated to the sidelines, social-emotional learning is now understood to be integral to the learning climate. English learners may require additional supports to employ certain emotion-regulation skills needed in the classroom. A chief emotion-regulation skill is the ability to label one's feelings, internally and to others. Students learning English while learning in English may struggle to communicate to teachers or peers subtle feelings like anxiety or confusion.
To build students' capacity to name their feelings and experiences, help students expand their SEL skills by using a vocabulary schema for "emotion" words that includes heritage-language equivalents for English words and visual representations. Real and imaginary characters students encounter in their reading can also provide excellent models for discussing emotions. For example, ask "How might Marie Curie have felt when her first uranium experiments didn't work? Let's look at the illustration, too." Elicit terms from students who speak languages other than English to link their new knowledge to familiar language, strengthening associations between emotions and language. A word wall of terms describing a range of feelings can also help students identify their own feelings and support them in using emotion words in writing.
3. Design Systems for Intervention
Hope-filled schools provide all students with the tools they need to achieve their aspirations, but it should come as no surprise that some students will need additional support. Put proactive systems for interventions in place, anticipating that there will be students who need them. Every secondary school should have a response to intervention system to help identify students who would benefit from additional instruction.
Most secondary schools have English learners who read well below grade level in English. These students need additional literacy instruction—and when there's no system in place for supplemental instruction, they fall further behind at a time when the learning demand is accelerating. To address this reality, the school where we work created an after-school class dedicated to English language development in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, which our English learners are encouraged to attend. This class is coordinated with their academic courses so that each student is engaged in knowledge-building coupled with specific language instruction.
The video accompanying this column shows specialist Keelie Bauman working with a middle school English learner during a reading intervention session. This student is one of a group of ELs at our school who, in addition to attending the after-school English development class, receive individualized instruction during the school day to boost their reading and writing. This individualized instruction accelerates their progress so their classroom teachers can build on success.
Monitoring Progress
Every initiative to improve learning conditions within a school should include a plan for monitoring progress. Key questions to monitor include:
- To what extent are teachers employing culturally responsive teaching to reach all learners?
- To what extent is social-emotional learning integrated into the academic curriculum and discourse?
- How are the intervention systems we have designed impacting student learning?
Don't wait an entire school year to see whether your initiative has delivered desired results. School teams that seek evidence of impact throughout the year can more easily make midcourse corrections to ensure that the conditions English learners need to thrive are present.
Initiatives that place the needs of English learners at the core, rather than as an afterthought, are built for success. The conditions we've identified aid every student's learning and should be a vital part of any initiative.
