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BILC/EDSL 6324
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Living Between WorldsDavid and Yvonne FreemanThe University of Texas at Brownsville
Why “Between Worlds” in This Title?
• Our students move between the world of their families and their native countries
• True for all students but for ELLs they come from different worlds… often worlds different from their teachers
• Many of our students are marginalized by the instruction they receive and the attitudes they encounter
Why “Between Worlds” in This Title?
• Many feel they do not belong anywhere-not accepted by school or home community cultural ambivalence-
• Others succeed in school but in the process lose home community
• Students may enter school monolingual in one language and leave school monolingual in another (lose L1)
• Rather than the best of both worlds, they trade one world for another
Why “Second Language Acquisition” in Title
• A number of linguistic, psychological, and social factors interact to permit or deny students access to a new language
• Teachers need to know about recent research, language learning theories, and effective practices
Living Between Worlds
What factors affect the school success of ELLs living between worlds?
The school exists within family, community, state, and national contexts
These contexts interact in complex ways to affect the success of English language learners
No one factor can explain success or failure However, we can change different aspects
of these contexts to assess the affect on our English language learners to improve their chances for success
national and state context
community and family context
school context
dynamic contextual interaction model
National and state attitudes toward
immigrants
legal mandates
mass media
National and State Context
Legal Mandates
Despite research showing the benefits of primary language instruction, legal mandates and common-sense practice have led to ineffective programs for ELLs
California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have enacted laws that result in English only instruction for English language learners
This has led to school programs, such as structured English immersion, that do not develop students’ first languages.
Many other states have either ESL or transitional bilingual programs that do not fully develop students’ first languages.
Neighborhood conditions
Family conditions
Family education level
Developmental needs
Family and Community Context
Mother’s Education Level
Ethnicity
Less than HS
high school
BA or more
Latino 41 29 10White 6 29 32Black 18 34 15Asian 16 22 45From Gándara Educational Leadership 2010
school facilityschool resourcesschool climate
student attitudesschool peers
level of staffingteacher attitudes
teacher knowledge and skills
parent involvementafterschool programs
student language proficiency
students’ prior schoolingstudents’ first language
and culture
School Context
Who Are Our English Language Learners Living Between Worlds?
Adequate formal schooling students
Limited formal schooling students
Long-term English learnersPotential long-term English learners
Newly arrived with adequate schooling
recent arrivals (less than 5 years in U.S. )
adequate schooling in native country
soon catch up academically may still score low on standardized
tests given in English
Newly Arrived with Limited Formal Schooling
recent arrivals ( less than 5 years in U.S. )
interrupted or limited schooling in native country
limited native language literacy
below grade level in math
poor academic achievement
Long term English learner
7 or more years in the U.S.
below grade level in reading and writing
mismatch between student perception of achievement and actual grades
some get adequate grades but score low on tests
have had ESL or bilingual instruction, but no consistent program
Potential Long Term English Learners
students who begin their schooling speaking a language other than English K-5
parents with low levels of education parents struggling financially and/or socially
school facilityschool resourcesschool climate
student attitudesschool peers
level of staffingteacher attitudes
teacher knowledge and skills
parent involvementafterschool programs
student language proficiency
students’ prior schoolingstudents’ first language
and culture
School Context
Mrs. Brown
“Teaching isn’twhat it used to be.”
Mrs. Brown Teaching Isn’t What It Used to Be
Analysis students have changed teachers don’t understand students’
languages, cultures, and values teachers struggle to communicate with
parents teachers become frustrated
Positive response
What Influences How Teachers Teach?
Several factors interact to account for how teachers teach and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they develop
What influences how teachers teach?
Influences ResultsPast academic experiences
Teach as we were taught
Educational training Teach as we were taught to teach
Colleagues/administrators
Teach as others teach or as we are required to teach
Changes in teaching situation
Adjust teaching to new school or level or new students
What influences how teachers teach?
Influences Resultsmaterials teach using available
or required materialsstudents teach in response (or
reaction) to the students
legislation teach to ensure that students meet the requirements of state and federal legislation
How do people learn and how do they acquire language?
The way teachers teach also depends on how they believe people learn and how they think people acquire language
Different methods follow from different views of learning
How do people learn and how to they acquire language?
“Learning and language acquisition overlap to a great extent in the sense that they are both social, contextual, and goal oriented. That is, individuals learn both content and language as they engage with others in a variety of settings to accomplish specific purposes” (Faltis and Hudelson, 1998)
Teacher’s Role
The role of the teacher is to mediate learning for students by providing scaffolds that enable them to solve problems and carry out activities independently.
school facilityschool resourcesschool climate
student attitudesschool peers
level of staffingteacher attitudes
teacher knowledge and skills
parent involvementafterschool programs
student language proficiency
students’ prior schoolingstudents’ first language
and culture
School Context
My Name is Jorge on Both Sides of the River (Medina, 1999)
¿Por qué soy tonto?
En mi país Yo era listo
Why am I dumb? In my country I was smart
Views of Bilinguals (O. García, 2009)
People, including researchers, have generally taken the view that bilinguals are really two monolinguals in one person
This view has led to misunderstandings about bilingual people and bilingual programs
García argues that we need to see bilingualism as a dynamic process in which the two or more languages constantly interact
Balanced Bilinguals
The reason that people think of bilinguals as being “balanced” is that they picture bilinguals as being like two monolinguals in one person.
However, bilinguals are not simply the sum of two monolinguals
L1
L2
A Holistic View of Bilinguals “the bilingual is an
integrated whole who cannot easily be decomposed into two separate parts… he has a unique and specific linguistic configuration”
Grossjean 2009
L1+L2
A holistic view of bilinguals
A bilingual is like a high hurdler. She doesn’t have to jump as high as a high jumper or run as fast as a sprinter
Instead, she is a unique individual with special skills
Dynamic Bilingualism
Dynamic bilingualism -Languages interact continually
Emergent bilinguals constantly access both their languages as they use them with different people in different contexts for different purposes
Theoretical Support for Using Both Languages in Instruction
New knowledge is built on prior understandings. If those understandings were built through L1, they can best be accessed through L1
Literacy skills are interdependent, so teaching should facilitate cross-language transfer
Ways to Support Students’ First Languages and Cultures While They Develop English
There are many ways that teachers can support and build students primary languages and cultures as their students develop English
Ways to use two languages together
Assign bilingual pairs
Arrange sister class exchanges
Conduct language comparison studies to build metalinguistic awareness
Metalinguistic Awareness
Ways to Use Two Languages Group students
heterogeneously for a writing assignment
Students read in L1 and retell stories to other students in L2
Students use bilingual dictionaries as a resource or read bilingual books or books in their L1
Ways to Use Two Languages Students are
grouped by L1 to discuss in L1 how to do homework in English
Students use L1 to discuss homework with parents
Students are given awards for proficiency in a non-English language
Ways to Use the Two Languages Together
Focus on cognates
(democracy, democracia)
create bilingual multimediabooks and projects
school facilityschool resourcesschool climate
student attitudesschool peers
level of staffingteacher attitudes
teacher knowledge and skills
parent involvementafterschool programs
student language proficiency
students’ prior schoolingstudents’ first language
and culture
School Context
national and state context
community and family context
school context
dynamic contextual interaction model
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