what english language teachers need to know volume i pdf

What practise teachers demand to know about students who are learning to speak English?

Page i: English Language Learners

The term English language learners (ELL), or English language learners (EL), refers to students whose commencement language is non English language but who are learning English. Note that in some states—California, for example—the preferred term is EL, which in the hereafter might become more widely adopted. The term limited English proficient (LEP) is by and large considered to be outdated, but is even so used by the federal regime.

Although every bit a group, English linguistic communication learners attending schools in the United States speak more than 400 languages, the majority of them, some eighty-five percent, are native Spanish speakers. In fact, just five languages—Spanish, Vietnamese, Hmong, Chinese, and Korean—business relationship for xc-five percent of the linguistic communication variance. Because the number of ELLs continues to increase in schools across the country, information technology is likely that every instructor at one time or some other will piece of work with them.

Inquiry Shows

Though English language learners may accept good conversational English skills, they may lack the vocabulary and academic language that is key to success in schoolhouse. Because of this, ELLs generally score lower on academic achievement tests than do their English language-speaking peers:

• 70-one percent of fourth-grade English language learners scored below basic ("Partial mastery of prerequisite cognition and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade level") in standardized reading assessments. This was the case for xxx percent of their not-ELL peers.
• Forty-three percentage of fourth-grade English language language learners scored below bones in math, whereas sixteen pct of their non-ELL peers did so.
• 70-4 percent of eighth-grade English linguistic communication learners scored beneath basic on reading accomplishment tests and similarly on math, compared to approximately a quarter of their not-ELL peers.(U.S. Department of Education, 2009)

In order to ameliorate the educational outcomes for English linguistic communication learners, it is important that teachers know how to work effectively with them. To begin, teachers should avoid making generalizations about the ability of ELLs based on their backgrounds. In fact, ELLs are a diverse group with distinct characteristics that include their:

• Familiarity with English
• School experiences
• Socioeconomic condition

We'll look at each of these distinctions in more particular beneath.

Familiarity with English

Teachers sometimes presume that all of their English language learners have like language needs; however, ELLs have a broad diversity of familiarity and comfort with English. Some are recent immigrants with trivial or no knowledge of the English linguistic communication. Others are born in the Usa withal might still be learning English. Some ELLs have a potent outset language and are learning English, and others are trying to larn both their primary language and English at the same fourth dimension. Audit the graphic below to get a sense of some of the linguistic communication distinctions among English language learners.

English language Language Learners

Contempo Immigrant

Born in U.S.

Some knowledge
of English skills

Little or no
cognition
of English

Simultaneous bilinguals: learning two languages
at once

Sequential bilinguals: strong get-go linguistic communication and learning English language as
a second language

School Experiences

Equally with their familiarity with English, ELLs also have a broad range of school experiences. In some cases, contempo immigrants may have had little previous schooling. For example, they may have spent years in a refugee camp. Others might take received a quality education in their abode country, including instruction in English, and arrived in the United States prepared to continue their education. The graphic below depicts a few examples of the kinds of schoolhouse experiences these students might accept had.

Past Schooling Experiences

No formal instruction

Inconsistent or sporadic education

Regularly attended one school with a consequent curriculum

Socioeconomic Condition

Socioeconomic condition (SES) is some other factor that distinguishes students from one some other and can affect a student's schoolhouse functioning. Some ELLs are from wealthy or centre-form backgrounds, while others alive in poverty. Regardless of their SES, all students have valuable experiences that both contribute to the classroom and should be used as a basis for their learning.

Leonard Baca, Director of the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, summarizes the distinctions among English linguistic communication learners (time: 0:56).

Transcript: Leonard Baca, EdD

English language learners are a very various grouping. Showtime of all, nosotros know at that place's quite a few of them, several million, and they come up from many unlike backgrounds and languages. Although near seventy-v percent are Castilian speakers, at that place are many dissimilar linguistic communication groups represented. Amidst them there again are many differences. Some of them take to practice with socioeconomic levels. The master departure is their proficiency in English. They range all the fashion from knowing no English language at all, to existence fairly proficient but all the same lacking in the finer points of academic linguistic communication. So teachers need to keep in mind that these kids are very diverse, and we can't treat them as though they were all the same or that they learn the same. They learn in different means and in dissimilar rates. They have different learning styles, so the teacher has to adapt quite a scrap for each language learner.

For Your Information

In addition to understanding their English language learners' distinct backgrounds, information technology is of import for teachers to recognize that family support is another factor that affects ELL students' chances for bookish success. Fostering a welcoming temper in the school and, whenever possible, communicating with parents in their native language is critical. Doing and so, teachers tin develop a relationship with these families and gain an understanding of the families' goals and values for their children.

Activity

Adults are ameliorate at learning a second linguistic communication than are young children.

Math is piece of cake for English language learners because numbers are universal.

Immersion is the best mode to learn a second language.

A student's get-go language interferes with his or her ability to learn a second linguistic communication.

It takes between five to vii years to become proficient enough in a second linguistic communication to succeed in an English-only classroom.

singleyfrodfurgurn.blogspot.com

Source: https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/ell/cresource/q1/p01/

Share this post