Teaching English Language Learners - … · Teaching English Language Learners. ... Using Performance-Based Assessments in the ELL Classroom ... ELLs Learn English?

Practical Articles by Educators from The ELL Outlook™

Teaching English Language Learners

Copyright © 2011 Course Crafters, Inc.

All of the articles in this publication were previously published in The ELL Outlook e-newsletter, a copyrighted publication of Course Crafters, Inc., in the years 2002–2007.

AcknowledgementsThis publication would not have been possible without the stellar design and production expertise of Ellen Matlach of Ellenem Design ([email protected]).

Thanks also go out to the editors of The ELL Outlook, Alex Ragan and Suzanne Irujo, and the many writers who contributed their expertise, research, and excellent writing to this publication through the years.

Course Crafters, Inc. Since 1993, Course Crafters (http://www.coursecrafters.com/) has specialized in designing and developing student and teacher materials for the fast-growing English language learner (ELL) market, in collaboration with scores of educational publishers. Course Crafters is the author of a number of ELL programs, including The Academic Language Notebooks: The Language of Math (Perfection Learning) and the online ELL Reference Center (EBSCO Publishing). The ELL Outlook e-newsletter and The Course Crafters Guides to the K–12 ELL Market are among the publications that Course Crafters developed to inform publishers and school districts about ELLs and their educational challenges. Course Crafters provides curriculum design and development, consulting, and professional development services in the ELL !eld. For information, please contact:

Lise RaganCourse Crafters, Inc.P.O. Box 1058Haverhill, MA [email protected]

Copyright © 2011 by Course Crafters Inc. All rights reserved. When purchased as a single-user license, this publication cannot be copied. For information on site licenses, please contact Lise Ragan at [email protected].

Design by Ellen Matlach for Boultinghouse & Boultinghouse, Inc., New York, NY 10016

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ContentsPreface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

SECTION 1Best Practices in ELL Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Speaking Before Reading? Or Both Together? . . . . . . . . . . . 9

What Does Research Tell Us About Teaching Reading to English Language Learners? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Teaching Math to English Language Learners: Can Research Help? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

So Just What Is the Academic Language of Mathematics? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Putting It All Together: Integrating Academic Math Language into Math Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Why Is Nopadol Failing Social Studies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Using Adapted Texts in ELL Classrooms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Promoting Native Language and Culture in English-Only Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The Language Assessment Conundrum: What Tests Claim to Assess and What Teachers Need to Know . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Using Performance-Based Assessments in the ELL Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

What Teachers Need to Know, and Be Able to Do, About Norm-Referenced Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Teaching the Academic Language of Textbooks: A Preliminary Framework for Performing a Textual Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

When an ELL Has Di!culty Learning, Is the Problem a Disability or the Second-Language Acquisition Process? . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Flexible Grouping: Nobody Ever Said Teaching Was Easy! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Teachers’ Biggest Challenge: Not Being Able to Communicate with Students and Their Parents . . . . . 94

What to Do With Only an Hour and a Half a Week? That Depends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100


SECTION 2Stories of Successful ELL Programs . . . . . . . . . . 108

Driving the Lesson Home: Teaching ELLs in Rural and Low-Incidence Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Steps to College Program Gives ELLs a Big Academic Boost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Out of the Ashes: Phoenix Academy Allows Newcomers to Soar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

The Long Journey from the Wat: Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Amazing Returns: The Final Chapter of Stories from the Wat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Georgia Summer School Program Bridges Gap for ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Wisconsin Summer Transition Program Removes Roadblocks for ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Parents As Students: A Unique Model of ELL Parent Involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Swimming Lessons: How a Dedicated Teacher Changed Life for ELLs in a Rural Nebraska Town . . . . 145

Hands On: Can Sign Language Help ELLs Learn English? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

SECTION 3Voices from the ELL Field: Experiences, Opinions, and Insights . . . . . . . . . 155

NCLB Requirements Prompt Changes in ELL Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Test Preparation for English Language Learners: Pros and Cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Speaking Softly, but with Passion: A Profile of Dr. Virginia Collier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

ELL Reform E"orts in San Diego: A Conversation with Nonie Lesaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

The Challenges and Joys of Teaching Migrant ELLs: One Teacher’s Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Why Can’t Teachers Just Teach in a Way Kids Can Understand? Suggestions for Teaching Main Ideas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Teacher Diary: A Chronicle of a First-Time ELL Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Teacher Diary #2: A Chronicle of a First-Time ELL Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Teacher Diary #3: A Chronicle of a First-Time ELL Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

2004 Teacher of the Year Stresses the Importance of Native Language and Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Glossary of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Contents (continued)


Preface 5 Copyright © 2011 Course Crafters, Inc.

PrefaceEnglish language learners, or ELLs, is the term commonly used to describe the approximately 5.5 million students who are currently enrolled in U.S. public schools (pre-K through Grade 12) who are learning English as a second language (ESL). The ELL population has grown from two million to over !ve million since 1990, a period in which the overall school population increased only 20 percent.

ELLs represent a substantial and growing sector of our school population—currently one in nine students in grades K–12. Largely because of immigration and higher birthrates in language-minority communities, ELL enrollments have more than doubled since the early 1990s. At the current rates of growth, ELLs will account for one of every four U.S. students by 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Education (2006).

Course Crafters, Inc. (http://www.coursecrafters.com) has specialized in developing content and materials for English language learners (ELLs) and their teachers since 1993. In early 2002, immediately after the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), our company started to create some articles on the fast-growing K–12 ELL market for educational publishers. The articles were intended to focus on the implications of NCLB for ELLs and, in particular, on the instructional materials designed for this growing population of students and their teachers. We wanted the articles to be as practical as possible. By highlighting the opportunities in the English language learner market, discussing the growing pressure No Child Left Behind put on educators across the country, and detailing the growth of funding sources for ELLs, The ELL Outlook was primarily meant to encourage the development of more and better materials for ELLs and their teachers, and put ELLs and the ELL market in the forefront of educational publishers’ minds.

Many publishers read The ELL Outlook, but we soon found another audience that read it and appreciated it, too: ELL educators. Therefore, after several issues, we started to create The ELL Outlook especially for ELL educators—teachers in the classroom who were working with these students every day. The ELL Outlook evolved to include teacher blogs, news features, opinion pieces, and articles, all of which translated theory into practice. The ELL Outlook came to be by ELL teachers and for ELL teachers.

The ELL Outlook was published for more than !ve years. By 2006, it had become (and still remains) a frequently quoted and often-used resource in professional development workshops and methods courses for teachers of ELLs across the country. Many schools of education and workshop presenters—from California to New Jersey and Texas to Montana—frequently asked permission to use articles from The ELL Outlook to help succinctly explain ELL best practices, de!ne key issues in ELL education, provide insights on how di"erent programs across the nation deal with ELLs’ unique challenges, and o"er practical suggestions for teachers “on the front lines.”

Fast forward to 2010, eight years after Course Crafters published the !rst issue of our e-newsletter focused on the ELL !eld. We still continue to get requests to reprint and use many of the articles from The ELL Outlook, from teachers, trainers, schools of education, and administrators across the nation. In addition, as they look to create more responsive materials for ELLs, we know that publishers, editors, sales and marketing managers, and

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product managers from educational publishing companies would bene!t from the articles as well.

Therefore, we decided to compile some of the most popular and useful articles in one volume, as a way to encourage further use of these practical articles by ELL teachers, teacher educators, and educational publishers.

What’s New in This Book?Teaching English Language Learners: Practical Articles by Educators from The ELL Outlook, compiles !ve years of The ELL Outlook (2002–2007), bringing together stories of successful ELL programs across the country, best practices in ELL teaching, and experiences of and practical guidelines from ELL experts in the !eld. The collection o"ers:

!!A survey of articles addressing the most important issues facing ELL educators, PreK–12.

!!A synopsis of each article, allowing readers to easily pick and choose which articles interest them.

!!Space in the margin of every article, to encourage readers to take notes and make observations as they read.

!!A glossary of terms, concepts, and ideas discussed in the articles, with de!nitions.

All of the articles included in this book focus on presenting ELL best practices in a demonstrable, practical, and immediately usable manner. Many of the articles cite additional resources, including websites, books, and other articles for learning more about the topic.

How Is This Book Organized?The book is organized into three sections:

! Section 1: Best Practices in ELL Teaching! Section 2: Stories of Successful ELL Programs! Section 3: Voices from the ELL Field: Experiences, Opinions, and Insights

Author biographies and a glossary of ELL terms follow the articles.

What Are Some Ways to Use This Book?As we put together this book, we asked people how they thought it could be used by ELL educators. Dr. Suzanne Irujo, an ELL educator herself and the long-time editor of The ELL Outlook, wrote back with quite a few suggestions. Here they are:

By one educator alone:! Personalize your readings: Use the space next to each article to keep a two-column

journal as you read. In the left-hand column, record things that strike you in some way (e.g., something that is especially important, things you hadn’t heard or thought of before, a unique way of doing something, and so forth). In the right-hand column, make a note about how this thing might be applied to your own classroom

! Dialogue with yourself: After reading, re#ect in writing about what you read. Do you agree, disagree, why? Would this work in your class? Why, why not? How does what you read change your teaching perspective? Several days later, return to what you read and make notes about it. Play devil’s advocate and challenge yourself to think about the issues more deeply. (If you write on a piece of paper, use a two-column format.


If you write with a computer, use a di"erent font or “track changes” for the second entries.)

By two people:! Pair observations: Both of you read the same article. Then you take turns observing a

class with ELLs that the other teaches, and making notes speci!cally about things that relate to the content of the article. Share your notes with your partner.

! Pair journals: Take notes as you read the same article your partner is reading, relating the article to your own teaching, and including questions you have about the article or your class. Exchange journals with your partner and answer his/her questions.

! Pair discussion: After reading the same article as your partner, and noting things that are particularly interesting as well as questions, get together with your partner and discuss the article.

By small groups:! Teacher study groups: Teachers who get together on a regular basis to discuss

classroom issues (with or without a facilitator) can use the articles to create an agenda for their meetings. Pairs of teachers can read the same article, summarize it for the group (main points, pros/cons, classroom implications, follow-up) and lead a discussion about it.

! Collaborative conservations: Teachers read the same article before a meeting, each bring questions and comments to the meeting, and discuss how the article relates to their own teaching situations.

By large groups:! Professional development: Articles apply to many di"erent issues that ESL and

bilingual teachers confront, so the compilation can serve as a common basis for of training sessions and work throughout a year for teacher sta" development meetings.

! Methodology courses: Articles can serve as supplementary readings for a methodology course, with discussions taking place in class or through an on-line discussion board.

We encourage you to use the space on each page next to the articles to make notes about how the insights and information in the article might be applied to your work with ELLs.

We hope you !nd the articles we’ve collected here informative and useful. Thank you for all the work that you do to ensure that ELLs are academically successful!

Lise B. RaganCEO and Publisher Course Crafters, Inc.

8 Copyright © 2011 Course Crafters, Inc.

Best Practices in ELL Teaching

S E C T I O N 1

Section 1: Best Practices in ELL Teaching 9 Copyright © 2011 Course Crafters, Inc.

Speaking Before Reading? Or Both Together?

Suzanne Irujo

Should reading instruction in English be delayed until ELLs’ achieve oral English pro!ciency? This question has been debated extensively over the years. On the one hand, premature reading instruction may result in students who are unable to gain meaning from texts. On the other hand, by delaying reading instruction, ELLs may fall further behind their native English-speaking peers. In this article, both sides of the argument are explored.

I’m delighted to have a question from a reader, which may inspire some of the rest of you to send questions. I never have all the answers, but I hope I can help you think in new ways about issues related to the education of ELLs.

The QuestionA “curious graduate student in Massachusetts” writes:

I’m reading Preventing Reading Di#culties in Young Children [Committee on the Prevention of Reading Di!culties in Young Children, 1998] for a class I’m taking and I had a question. On page 11 of the executive summary, it says:

“Although print materials may be used to develop understanding of English speech sounds, vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading instruction is appropriate until an adequate level of English pro"ciency in spoken English has been achieved.”

This seems contradictory to what I’d assume (primarily based on the idea of teaching language and content simultaneously). If a teacher waited to start teaching an ELL “formal reading instruction” until they gained “an adequate level of English pro"ciency,” wouldn’t the student fall far behind his/her native English speaking peers? Isn’t this especially dangerous since learning to read well before the 3rd grade is so important? What—or who—determines an adequate level of spoken English pro"ciency?

Although I am sure this is explained in greater detail farther on in the text, I am having a hard time swallowing this now (especially since it seems to be contradictory to what I’d assume).

NOTES

NOTES


This is an interesting question, and one that’s been debated for years. The idea that reading shouldn’t be taught until after oral language has developed !rst emerged during the language teaching “revolution” of the 1960s that resulted in the audio-lingual method. At a time when most foreign and second languages were taught through the grammar-translation method and focused almost exclusively on reading and writing, the audio-lingual method focused on the primacy of oral/aural language. The premise was that when children acquire their !rst language, there is a natural progression from listening to speaking, then to reading, and !nally to writing. It was assumed that learning a second language should follow that same progression. The theory underlying the audio-lingual approach to language teaching and learning was thoroughly discredited by Chomsky’s revolution in linguistics (Chomsky, 1959), but the idea that children have to be able to speak a language before they can read it has stayed with us.

Both Sides of the QuestionThe question of whether or not to delay second-language reading instruction because of a lack of oral pro!ciency is one of those issues for which I can present convincing arguments on both sides. The very nature of reading is an argument for delay. If reading is the process of creating meaning from text, and if text re$ects the graphophonemic, morphemic, syntactic, semantic, and discourse features of a particular language, then it would seem to be impossible to create meaning from text written in a language that one doesn’t know. If we try to teach preliterate children to read in a language they don’t know, we risk creating nonreaders, who understand neither the mechanics of decoding nor the concept of reading for meaning. If we try to teach children who are literate in another language to read in a second language that they don’t know, we risk creating “word callers” who know how to decode but can’t create meaning from the text because they don’t understand the language in which it is written.

On the other side of the question, I agree with the reason given by my curious questioner for not delaying reading instruction. We know that it takes from six months to two years for ELLs to acquire conversational language (Cummins, 1981). Assuming that a child enters !rst grade with no oral English pro!ciency and no native language literacy skills, that child might have to wait until third grade to begin formal instruction in reading. It is very di#cult for third-grade teachers to accommodate nonreading children, making it unlikely that these children would ever catch up. In an age of accountability, we cannot risk having large numbers of ELLs behind in reading from the very beginning of their school careers. Another reason for not delaying formal reading instruction is that reading can help second-language learners develop their oral language skills. This is particularly true of older students with good native language literacy skills but occurs also with younger preliterate children.

NOTES


What Research Says and Doesn’t SaySometimes research can help when the arguments on both sides of an issue are equally convincing. But in this case the !ndings are contradictory. Various studies have stressed the importance of oral pro!ciency for second-language reading development (e.g., Chu-Chang, 1981; Lee & Schallert, 1997). Others have found that young ESL students, even those who speak little or no English, are able to learn to read in English (e.g., Hudelson, 1984). The problem here, as with so much research in education, is that we are trying to compare apples to oranges and come up with some kind of conclusion. A drug company would never try to draw conclusions from studies on patients of di"erent ages, with di"erent diseases, who were given di"erent formulations of the drug. Yet we try to draw conclusions from studies of students (“patients”) of di"erent ages, with very di"erent backgrounds (“diseases”), who receive di"erent instructional programs (“drugs”). We do that because the fragmented nature of research in education means that most studies are small scale, and very few are ever replicated in a similar context.

So What Should We Do?If both positions have advantages and disadvantages and the research is contradictory, what should teachers do? It would be very easy just to say, “Let’s go with the experts,” but there are some crucial caveats. The authors of Preventing Reading Di!culties in Young Children emphasized the importance of teaching initial reading in the native language whenever possible. This is the preferred alternative because it allows children to acquire oral English pro!ciency at the same time they are acquiring reading skills; these skills then transfer to English reading quickly and easily once oral pro!ciency has been achieved. The recommendation to delay the introduction of formal English reading instruction when ELLs have little or no oral pro!ciency applies only to cases in which native language instruction is not possible. And that recommendation is made on the basis of theory extrapolated from studies showing greater success when initial reading is taught in the !rst language, not on the basis of studies showing greater e"ectiveness when reading in a second language is delayed until oral pro!ciency is established.

We also need to consider what “formal reading instruction” and “adequate level of spoken English pro!ciency” really mean. I had a student who came to me in fourth grade with grade-appropriate reading skills in Spanish and no oral English pro!ciency. She had come from Puerto Rico a few weeks before she started at my school and had been enrolled in a di"erent school system during that time. When we received her records from the other system, her reading record contained only this statement: “Inés is on page 3 of Book A in the [phonics-based basal] reading program, and will remain there until she learns to distinguish the short vowels.” In this case, “formal reading instruction” meant phonics !rst and only, and “adequate level of oral English” therefore meant the ability to distinguish between the vowel sounds in words such as pen

NOTES


and pin. A delay was indeed necessary, since reading was dependent on the development of phonetic discrimination skills in English. Rather than subjecting Inés to what I considered to be an unnecessary and harmful delay, I chose to modify her reading program. Using meaningful, predictable texts that appealed to a fourth grader, I incorporated large amounts of phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, and other language activities into her reading instruction. Reading from predictable texts was supplemented with techniques such as the language experience approach and dialogue journals. By combining oral language development and English literacy instruction, Inés read and wrote about everything we discussed and discussed everything she read and wrote about. By reading texts that were familiar to her from our prior discussions, she was able to use her grade-level literacy skills in Spanish to learn English structure and vocabulary.

This only works, however, when oral language instruction and reading instruction in English are very closely integrated. When this is done, it is the reading text itself that provides a de!nition of “adequate oral language.” The vocabulary and structures that are essential for comprehending any particular text constitute the “adequate oral language” for that text. The oral pro!ciency that is adequate for reading a predictable book is far from adequate for reading a social studies textbook. But reading instruction in English does not have to be delayed until students’ oral pro!ciency is adequate for reading a social studies textbook.

It DependsSo why does Preventing Reading Di#culties in Young Children advocate “the postponement of formal reading instruction . . . until an adequate level of English pro!ciency in spoken English has been achieved”? Probably because “formal reading instruction” seldom includes the kind of integration of language development and reading instruction that I’m talking about. There is a real danger of ELLs never learning to read well if formal reading instruction begins before they know enough English to comprehend what they read, especially when formal instruction focuses more on decoding skills than on meaning. However, there is also a real danger that the delay will make it very di#cult for ELLs to catch up later.

I believe that decisions about whether to delay reading instruction or not have to be made on an individual basis, taking into consideration student factors such as age, grade level, native language reading ability, access to comprehensible English input, and motivation, as well as teacher factors such as the ability to integrate language and reading instruction, to adapt or create materials as necessary, and to di"erentiate reading instruction for the ELLs in the classroom. So, at the risk of sounding like an evasive politician, my answer to the question of whether formal reading instruction in English should be delayed until ELLs have acquired oral language has to be, “It depends.” "

NOTES


ReferencesChomsky, N. (1959). Review of B. F. Skinner: “Verbal Behavior.” Language, 35, 26–57.

Chu-Chang, M. (1981). The dependency relation between oral language and reading in bilingual children. Boston University Journal of Education, 163, 30–55.

Committee on the Prevention of Reading Di#culties in Young Children, National Research Council. (1998). Preventing reading di!culties in young children. (K. E. Snow, M. W. Burns, & P. Gri#n, Eds.). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingualism and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Hudelson, S. (1984). Kan yu ret an rayt en Ingles: Children become literate in English as a Second Language. TESOL Quarterly, 18, 221–238.

Lee, J.-W., & Schallert, D. L. (1997). The relative contribution of L2 language pro!ciency and L1 reading ability to L2 reading performance: A test of the threshold hypothesis in an EFL context. TESOL Quarterly 31, 713–739.

Documents

Teaching English Language Learners - … · Teaching English Language Learners. ... Using Performance-Based Assessments in the ELL Classroom ... ELLs Learn English?