Years after most school districts in the United Stated have initiated some type of “strategy” for educating America’s, increasing ELL population,; questions about how well teachers of English Language Learners (ELL) are being trained and the effectiveness of ELL programs have arisen . For many, such topic may not be as important to some as it is to others. In retrospect, the number of ELL students grows every school year as schools districts absorb the increased enrollment. Based on state-reported data, it is estimated that 4,999,481 ELL students were enrolled in public school (pre-K through grade 12) during the 2003-2004 school year (Mckeon, 1). With this in mind, school districts are still witnessing a tremendous growth of their ELL population as educators prepare for the tidal wave of non-English speakers. Unfortunately, in lieu of the data, school districts are still not ready for the influx of students who are arriving every day, and teachers are not fully prepared. Additionally, many school districts are failing to support their teachers and to evaluate their ELL programs effectiveness. In fact, the lack of success in many ELL programs is due to the insight that many states are implementing programs with no proof that such programs are effective or working. Simply put, many school districts are not evaluating the efficacy of their program, providing support to teachers, and initiating diversity training and skill buildings.
Everywhere in the U.S., ELL students keep coming in as states try to figure out what to do with them. With this in mind, Arizona seems to have provided an example of such problems. In September 2007, the Arizona State Board of Education adopted the Structured English Immersion (SEI) model. The SEI progra...
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...to do so. Many want to know why many states ELL programs are not successful. The answer to most of such questions seems to be that no one is keeping up with the needs of an ELL population that is the fastest growing trend. Schools need to monitor their teachers and mentor them until teachers have developed enough expertise to teach a multicultural community. Also, school districts need to improve their educational approaches; using a single strategy will not help everybody. Many believe that using different tools and techniques will impact the states ELL programs tremendously. Moreover, there is enough blame to go around when it comes to the ELL programs but many believe when states evaluate their school districts and school districts train their teachers with the appropriate materials and resources, most surmise that the benefits will be realized in the classroom.
When do English language learners need to be placed in special education? In the United States, there has been an increase in in the number of children from Spanish speaking backgrounds. The English Language Learners, commonly known as ELL’s, are being placed in Special Education without being properly tested for a learning disability. However there are a large number of ELL’s with learning disabilities in elementary grades that truly have a learning disability and are over looked.
Flynn, K. & Hill, J. (2005). English language learners: A growing population. Mid-Research For Education And Learning, 1-11.
I was interested in how ELL teachers connect with their students of diverse backgrounds and cultures. Each said that they try to learn about the students’ cultures. The teachers all felt it was important to make a connection. They suggested taking interest in the student’s native language and home life, or having students share language, holiday traditions and foods. ELL teachers can also try to incorporate the different cultures to enrich their lessons.
The United States is a country known for its diversity; so when it comes to the diverse classrooms of today many would not think there would be an issue. However, many schools face a multitude of problems that affect pupil’s education. Roughly twenty-seven percent of Hispanic, Latino, and African-American students in the state of Louisiana fall within the poverty level and unfortunately do not obtain a decent quality education. In addition, only seventy-four percent of those Louisiana students go on to graduate high school (Spotlight on Poverty, 2015). The core portion of the issue concerning poverty in relation to education is due to the economy, work availability, and
...odel minority stereotype contributed to Keltner and Lily struggle with schooling by heightening parental “education fever” and increase academic as well as emotional burdens on Keltner and Lily who were already struggling with learning. Lily and Keltner stories suggest that each family or child should be understood in their specific learning contexts. Educators need to understand an individual child’s lived experiences and addresshis/her psychological and educational needs so that they can achieve his/her own success. Schools and policy maker can help educator to do so by developing appropriate curriculum that is oriented to ESL students, rather than using mainstream curriculum that does not fit the needs of ESL learners. Training teachers to implement classroom strategies that aim to understand students’ individual needs and foster students’ school home connection.
Echevarria, J. Teaching language minority students in elementary schools (Research Brief No. 1). Santa Cruz, CA, and Washington, DC: Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence. (2003)
The Academic English Mastery Program (AEMP) is a groundbreaking approach to ensuring the language and literacy acquisition of speakers of non-standard varieties in parts of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Headed by former speech pathologist Dr. Noma LeMoine, AEMP is a response to an article entitled, “The Children Can No Longer Wait: An Action Plan to End Low Achievement and Establish Educational Excellence,” which outlines the difficulties of nonstandard English speakers and the failure of the school district to successfully address these deficiencies (LeMoine, 1999, p. 4). The program began in 1990 with nineteen elementary schools and was originally called the Language Development Program for African American Students, thus designed for African American Language speakers. It has now changed its name to appropriately describe its expansion to over three hundred elementary and junior high schools and to include other groups of nonstandard English speakers who are identified as Limited Standard English Proficient students (LeMoine, 2002, lecture). These constituents, what Ogbu (1997, pg. 234, 235) call “castelike minorities,” include African-Americans, Mexican Americans, Hawaiian Americans, and Native Americans, whose native language is not Mainstream American English (MAE). Students are classified as Standard English Language Learners; they are often misclassified by the school district as “English Only” speakers because a great portion of their respective home languages “[incorporate] English vocabulary but [embody] phonology, grammar, and sentence structure rules from indigenous languages other than English” (L...
Every year, the number of immigrants in the U.S. has grown “significantly.” Chen predicts that by the year of 2020, public schools will have at least 50 percent of students that are non-English speakers (¶5). This shows that it is important that public schools have a successful ESL program. The purpose of ESL programs is “to enhance” ESL students learning, to help students’ “emotional well-being”, and to accelerate students’ ability to learn the new language. According to Chen, some district schools have failed to support ESL students’ learning. For example, Chen stated that “...[some] school districts [have been] accused of not meeting t...
The number of ELLs being educated in the United States has increased dramatically. Although total enrollment between the 1993-1994 school year and the 2003-2004 school year rose by only 10%, the number of school-age ELLs increased by 100% (Short & Echevarria, 2004), and researchers predict that by the year 2030, 40% of the school-age population will be ELLs (DelliCarpini, 2008). This rise in school-age ELLs can be attributed to the increasing immigrant population in the U.S. (Echevarria et al., 2006). Although 75% of all immigrant children reside ...
For the first section of my Inquiry Article, I posed the question: "How Does an Educator Teach Standard English in Urban Schools, and is it Necessary? I chose this question because I plan to teach in an urban school district, and I know urban students often have a difficult time learning to speak Standard English. I also know that speaking non Standard English can affect a student's acceptance and advancement in society. However, while completing my pre-teaching field experience, I did not have the opportunity to put my theory of teaching Standard English into practice. Instead, I was able to help students understand first, the immigration experience; second, the idea of language, and how difficult it is to learn a secondary discourse; and finally, why many individuals use dialects that differ from that of Standard English. I taught a two-day immigration and speech lesson that required students to become immigrants and learn a new language, and helping students understand another student's perspective was just as intriguing and rewarding as teaching students to speak standard English.
...l survival in our society. I work as a counselor each summer at a sports camp in Philadelphia, and each summer I encounter very intelligent students who are placed in lower tracks or labeled as ìlearning deficientî because of their language. This disturbs me because as a speaker of both Black Vernacular speech and Standard English, I know that students can learn to use Standard English just as I have. Unfortunately, many students are not privileged enough to have the same educational opportunities that I was given by my parents, therefore, it is my responsibility to teach these students Standard English the way that I have been taught. But I must learn more about teaching students and dealing with the issues that plague the educational system, and I am looking forward to receiving more of this knowledge during my pre-student teaching and student teaching experiences.
The purpose of this study is to figure out which ways experienced teachers work best with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study illustrates which strategies experienced teachers have found to work best. The diversity in school in the United States has increased each year. This means that there are an increasing amount of students who are learning English, English language learners (ELLs). This article comes from the perspective that each child should be taught to their specific needs. All students deserve a fair chance to learn. Fair means that every student is treated differently, not equally. Every student learns differently. In order to give every student a fair chance at learning, you must teach them according to their needs. An experienced teacher, Tiffany, describes her experiences working with culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study watches her methods and discusses what works based on data analysis of the success of her students.
The purpose of this assignment is to explain the impact of English language learners in the classroom. As a foreign student, English language learner in the United States faces multiple challenges for achieving academic success. To successfully complete a task, they need to master both English as a language and how it is used in core content classes especially when they are an adult. When trying to assist in instructing English language learners, they usually have many concepts and language abilities that they need to master, as do the teachers that are trying to teach them. With the incorporation of the concepts and approaches to identify and assess the issues and concerns that we have learned in our classroom instruction, such as lesson preparation,
There are many challenges that teachers encounter when teaching children with learning disabilities, learners that are English language learners, or learners who are culturally and linguistically diverse. As a nation we are faced with the challenged that our schools are becoming more diverse. The majority of our schoolteachers are still predominately white females, but our student population is slowly changing. We are seeing more minority groups in our schools that are facing different challenges. The scary part of it all is that our teachers do not have the skills to accommodate those differences. “The nation’s changing school demographics are creating a demand for new teaching skills” (Utley, Obiakor, & Bakken 2011, pg. 5). Our student population
Many schools are now faced with a language challenge, because many students do not speak any English at all. The number of students who speak little or no English has more then tripled in the past ten years to about 27,000 roughly the size of the one of the states largest school districts(Smith,1). This is the reason why schools are now hiring more ESL teachers then before. There is a great demand for them. The students in the ESL classes are as different as the languages they speak(Smith,2). Although many of the students might be well educated they still face the challenge of learning English. While of the schools by law are required to teach English to students who are foreign how schools do it will vary widely.