The All Too Familiar Situation Of English Language Learners

Having the insight as a former student and a present educator, Linda Christensen wrote about her views on the way English is taught to students in her essay“Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” Christensen

It's a regular Tuesday morning, just like any other. A Hispanic mother is called to the school for a meeting for a consultation about her son’s performance. While in the meeting, the principal tells her that her child is in the 2nd grade, but is very behind. He adds the fact that her child does not understand the language the teacher speaks, and consequently, is not learning. The mother feels helpless since she cannot help him by reason of not understanding the language either. Hence, this is the difficult reality for numerous Hispanic families.

be English Language Learners, (ELL) for them to benefit from this lesson or to meet state

Immigrant and multilingual youth face many challenges while getting an education. There are programs, laws and curriculum created and put in place in order to help further them in their educational goals; but these end up causing more harm than good. This is referred to as subtractive schooling. In this paper we will briefly go over what subtractive schooling is, what causes this to occur and what could be done to fight this type of schooling.

School board members across the country want to better serve the students who are English language learners. Because countless English language learner students spend part of their academic day in a regular classroom, the general education teachers need to be trained to understand instructional strategies and techniques to aid in advancing this population of students (Stover, 2015). Consequently, it would also be beneficial for school board members to support the bilingual and English Language Learner Specialist in training all teachers in the district on ways to better serve this population.

It is essential to understand English language learners’ needs because ELL students face the combined challenge of learning all the academic content as other students, while also learning the language of instruction. With the rapid growth in the size of the ELL student population in the U.S., teachers who are effective recognizes ELL students unique academic needs, unique background experience, culture, language, personality, interests and attitudes toward learning for the purpose to adjust, or differentiate, their instruction to meet students’ needs.

ELL continue to rise year after year. In EDUC 628, the class delved into the rise of ELL in America and how the best teaching methods to approach each learner with. Every ELL student is unique and has different learning process. Although the semester covered a wide variety of topics ranging from dialects to teaching methods, every module served its purpose in providing a framework for future ELL teachers. Learning about how to teach ELL was significant to me because when I first entered the school system in America, I was placed into ESL and I have gone through the process of many of these teaching methods. EDUC 628 main focus was preparing students whose goal in the future was to educate ELL. The articles and readings assigned in the class provided a funds of knowledge going into each new lesson. Coupled with the readings, hands on activities such as the mini lessons and designing lesson plans provided each student with experience that will reflect on their teaching abilities in the classroom. In my paper, I will be provided a step by step synthesis of what was learned and accomplished every week along with a brief summary of the readings. I will probe deeper into the modules and lessons that piqued my interest the most and that also challenge my mindset.

Over the last decade or so, important legislation has been implemented to positively ensure fair and equal access to a quality education for English Language Learners (ELL). Change did not happen without there being obstacles to overcome. There were many overturned cases that initially sought to strip English Language Learners of their basic rights to an education. Yet, there would eventually be legislation instituted to help alter the course.

With nearly 30 million immigrants crossing our borders in the last three decades, the United States education system has seen a dramatic increase in the number of English Language Learners (ELLs) entering the classroom (Migration Policy Institute website, n.d.). With this influx of non-native English speakers has come the need to find the best ways possible to meet them where they are academically and teach them accordingly. However, after years of research, education gurus are still divided on how to best meet the needs of ELLs. While there is no clear-cut approach, there are several strategies and programs that schools can implement in order to help immigrant learners and their families be successful in our school system.

An important goal of education is the ability to think for oneself. Many authors talk about education, such as Luis J. Rodriguez in her article “ Slurring Spanish”, Amy Tan’s article “ Mother Tongue”, and Sherman Alexie’s “ The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” all point out the problems of education. Some obstacles that minority students face in the U.S. come from school, family, and their own cultures. Speaking a different language, having different language experiences, and studying hard to overcome stereotypes are big challenges not only for immigrant students, but also for native students.

(1990) cites a few reasons why immigrant children may struggle in school such as living a life of poverty, cultural and linguistic differences, and lack of self-esteem or appreciation for home culture. To perform well in school, students must be familiar with American culture and the American education system. It is the responsibility of the teacher to explain this to the student. The teacher’s role “consists primarily of facilitating the transmission of cultural values needed by students to become motivated to learn” (Trueba et al. 1990).

An impressive 16.2% of students in the Federal Way public school system self-identify as Hispanic (U.S. Census, 2013) [primary]. Of these students, 23.9% are foreign born (U.S. Census, 2013) [primary]. These students are often multilingual, switching to Spanish when home. In fact, 32.4 percent of students speak a different language at home (U.S. Census, 2013) [primary]. It should not come as a surprise that language is a major component of one’s culture. Most American schools place a heavy emphasis on

When these non-English-speaking children arrive at their local school for the first time, they will unfairly be expected to perform at the same level academically as their English-speaking peers, and this will be a big challenge for them because they will have a hard time understanding what their teachers are teaching and what their textbooks are saying. In addition, learning the English language is especially important for young English language learners who have recently immigrated to the United States because they have an additional and serious responsibility beyond just adding a new language; once they do begin to pick up the language, they will more than likely have to take on the role of translator for their parents and will become the sole line of communication between their non-English speaking parents and the school’s teachers, guidance counselors and administrators.

Hill, J.D., & Flynn, K.M. (2006). Classroom instruction that works with English language learner. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Teaching English Language Learning students have become the talk for schools across the nation during the past decade. As of the 2010-2011 school year, English Language Learners made up 13% of student population nationwide (Hill, 2012). As our nation grows in population, the diversity of our nation grows as well. English Language Learning students are entering into our schools, struggling to fit in, and struggling to understand the topics being taught. Due to this ongoing issue, research strongly supports the need for English Language Learners to develop a rich oral academic language as a pre-cursor for reading and writing proficiently in English (e.g. August & Shanahan, 2006; Fillmore & Snow 2000; Saunders & Goldenberg 2010; Saunders & O’Brien 2006; Walqui; 2010; Williams & Roberts, 2011). As Diaz-Rico states, reading is an essential skill. Children, who do not learn to read in elementary school, enter secondary education as severe under achievers and are at risk for dropping out (Diaz-Rico, 2010). With English Language Learners (ELL’s), reading comprehension skills are extremely important to learn early in a child’s academic life, because every subject in school is based on comprehension. Although teaching ELLs is not an easy task to teach, there are so many comprehension strategies a teacher can use to help an ELL student succeed.