English Language Learners

Some students are fortunate enough to be offered English as a Second Language classes (abbreviated ESL) or bilingual programs in school. Sandy Yanes, a third grade

Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills (BICS) refers to a student’s ability to understand basic conversational English, sometimes called social language. Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) refers to a student’s ability to effectively understand and use the more advanced and complex language necessary for success in academic endeavors, sometimes referred to as academic language.

Teachers that have an awareness of BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) can recognize

Children develop communication skills from birth. They rely on speech, language and communication to be able to learn at school and play with their friends. They need these skills to reach their full potential. Children begin to understand words before they can say them. They then learn how to say these words and how to put them together to make sentences. Some develop quickly,

Language is a beautiful gift. With it we can share our wants, our needs, our thoughts, our feelings, and everything that makes us human. If you spend time with a child, you have the power to give and nurture this gift of communication.

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) refers to formal academic language. This includes anything from speaking, listening, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language is essential for children to achieve in the classroom environment and can take five to seven years, for an EAL leaner to become competent in the language.

b. demonstrates an understanding of the types and benefits of bilingualism and bilingual programs and the importance of viewing use of the primary language as a right and as an asset for English Language Learners

“Education for all students” has been the mandate of the public school system for many generations. In 1974, in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Lau v. Nichols brought the focus of equal educational opportunities to include those who did not speak English or had limited English proficiency (Lau v. Nichlos, January 21, 1974). By examining this court case one will become familiar with the court’s ruling, understand the impact on the education of non-English speakers including the academic achievement, and improvement of education for the English language learners.

Knowing that most of the students come from low income families, I can sympathize, and will not burden the families with excessive purchases of materials outside of what the school can provide, but I will not lower my expectations of my students. From the standpoint of working with student from diverse backgrounds, I believe prior years of travel outside of the United States have given me an appreciation of other cultures and their an understanding of their contributions to the world. It would be also mindful to observe if some of the students are struggling with English. Once the English Language Learners (ELL’s) are identified, appropriate instruction can be given to assist the student(s) with slower instruction that is not packed with excessive

Himmele (2012) pointed out that many times teachers untrained in handling ELLs see them as “someone else’s problem” because they feel that someone trained in dealing with ELLs specific weaknesses would be more successful. Since they do not have such training, they feel they are “off the hook”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teaching through content is the best way to acquire a second language while obtaining academic proficiency, and who better to teach that content in a meaningful and authentic manner than the subject area teacher.

Online Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners (ACCESS for ELLs) is a secure large-scale English language proficiency assessment given to 1st through 12th graders who have been identified as English learners (Colorado Department of Education, 2018). ACCESS is a summative assessment that is administered annually to monitor ELLs’ progress in acquiring English in the four domains of English (i.e., reading, writing, speaking, and listening). Like the WIDA Screener, students’ performance on ACCESS can help educators’ make decisions on the types of language supports and services that should be provided to students to help then be successful in

However, pre-service teacher training programs do not prepare teachers to meet the needs of these learners (Samson & Collins). For those few states that do mandate teacher coursework in English language learner pedagogy, teacher preparation courses are underdeveloped, focusing on oral language development (Samson & Collins). In his seminal work in second language acquisition, Cummins (2000) identified two domains of language proficiency, basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). CALP is the indicator of true biliteracy. Biliteracy models that support a child’s first language lead to faster academic proficiency in a second language (Escamilla et al. 2014). Teachers who do not understand second language acquisition will be unable to provide content knowledge to support biliteracy (National Research Council, 2010). Professional development that increases teacher academic and content knowledge of second language acquisition is the first component of literacy reform.

Most young children develop language rapidly, moving from crying and cooing in infancy to using hundreds of words and understanding their meanings by the time they are ready to enter kindergarten. Language development is a major accomplishment and is one of the most rewarding experiences for anyone to share with a child. Children learn to speak and understand words by being around adults and peers who communicate with them and encourage their efforts to talk.

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and

Since the 1900’s many theorists have carried out research into language development and many theories are still being used in the classroom to develop strategies which are highly effective in ‘Second Language acquisition’ (SLA). An example of this is Cummins’ (1981) Iceberg Model which identified two types of language proficiency. The first type is called basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and the second type is called ‘cognitive academic language proficiency’ (CALP). EAL children can take up to one – two years to gain BICS, and between five – seven years to gain CALP.