LITERATURE REVIEW | esl-teacherresources

4 Main Areas of Concern for ESL instruction

Yu Ren Dong (2004) has written a fantastic article highlighting these four main areas of concern with a specific focus on the mainstream classroom teacher. The article shows how teachers whom have focused on these main areas have developed effective language and content integration strategies that have been proven to be beneficial for their students. Dong states that teachers whom do not participate in understanding their students are “unwittingly reducing these learners’ opportunities by diluting the course content, providing few modifications to the way they speak, and ignoring or excluding these students from class discussions and learning” (Dong, 2004, pg. 202).

If you cannot actively engage ELL students in your classroom, than you are setting them up for failure. Yu Ren Dong instructs graduate students on how to build empathy for their ELL students by having them recall situations in which they were in a foreign country where they did not speak the language. Having the graduate students recall times where they felt lost, scared, unwelcomed and inexperienced showed them how it feels to be an ELL student. Imagine that you have come to America for the first time, not knowing anything about our language or our culture. If you can apply these feelings towards your ELL students, you have built empathy for them. Some of the students in Dong’s class also described feelings of language difficulties that “led to not only communication breakdowns but also identity issues” (Dong, 2004, pg. 203).

ELL students often feel like they do not know whom they are when faced with learning a new language. Often they are required to speak English in school, but their native language at home. Sometimes parents keep their children from speaking the native language because they want their children to fit in to our culture. Not only do students have to struggle with learning a new language and culture, but they also have to learn content areas before they have even mastered the language. Students “had to use the language that they were still learning to learn new academic content to prepare for statewide tests” (Dong, 2004, pg. 204). This can also cause frustration for your ELL students because they want to perform well, but they are learning a million things all at once.

In order to build empathy for your ELL students, you must understand how they acquire the language. In the book Bilingual Education in Elementary and Secondary School Communities, the authors Faltis and Hudelson (1998) dedicate a whole chapter to theoretical framework that makes up language acquisition. Language acquisition can be referred to the acquisition of the spoken language, but Faltis and Hudelson include the spoken and written language into the term. Most research into language acquisition leaves out the social, contextual and goal-oriented nature of learning, but the authors make it a point to add these ideals into their framework. The reason they focus on these aspects is because it overlaps in learning and acquiring language. “Individuals learn both content and language as they engage with others in a variety of settings and to accomplish specific purposes” (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998, pg. 85). Learning does not take place solely in the minds of the students, but through social interactions with other people. It also involves trying out ideas and actions and remembering the results or consequences.

Faltis and Hudelson claim that learning is by invitation and it is a social event that takes place in the present but can evoke the past. “Every time an interaction occurs, it relies on knowledge, meaning, feelings and images that have already happened” (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998, pg. 87). Faltis and Hudelson intertwine two major theories to form their own theory on language acquisition. The first theory they discuss is Stephen Krashen’s (1977) Monitor Theory. The Monitor Theory uses five hypotheses to explain second language acquisition among ELLs.

Another area all teachers with ELL students must concentrate on is building background knowledge. Ann Navarro (2008) wrote a great article describing how ELL students acquire background knowledge. Navarro describes background knowledge as schema. Schema is “the mental framework by which we organize concepts” (Navarro, 2008, pg 1). Schema can be organized into 6 functions:

Provides scaffolding for integrating text
Simplifies a reader’s ability to focus on important information
Helps make inferences
Provides a guide to search for memory
Aides in editing and summarizing
Helps form questions about missing information (Navarro, 2008, pg 4).

Navarro discusses the Schema theory for which building background knowledge was derived from. The Schema theory states “text does not carry meaning itself but rather provides hints to allow readers and listeners to create meaning from prior knowledge” (Navarro, 2008, pg 4). Schema is basically a mental process between the reader and the information, which is activated by the culture of the reader. Two processing modes, the bottom-up and top-down makes up schema.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires that ELL students have an understanding of the academic language used in the classroom. Albus, Klein, Liu and Thurlow (2004) define academic language as language that is used in an academic setting in order to acquire knowledge. Albus, et al. have demonstrated that little research has been done to show the relationship between academic language, standardized assessments, and the performance on these tests. However, since ELL students are learning a new language and learning the content areas of school, it can be said that the language of these tests may be causing the difficulty ELL students have while taking them.

Albus, et al. set about to conduct research to find how academic language plays a role among standardized testing. They studied how ELL students performed on proficiency tests, how they performed in mainstream classroom and how they performed in their bilingual assistance classes. The results they found were interesting. They studied the test scores of Language Assessment Scale (LAS) and the Test of Emerging Academic English (TEAE). They found that students, who scored one way on one test, generally scored the same on the other test. They believe that the ELL students, who did not perform well, did so because the language was too difficult to understand.

When teaching ELL students, there are four main areas of concern that teachers should focus on to make successful ELL students. These areas include understanding language acquisition, building empathy for ELL students, teaching academic language and building background knowledge. Understanding language acquisition and building empathy for your students should be personal goals you set as a teacher. If you understand how your students learn the language, then you have a better sense of how to teach the language to them. If you have empathy for your students, then you stand a better chance of getting through to them. In order to teach academic language and build background knowledge in your students, you must complete the first two areas of concern. The following is a literature review highlighting the four main areas.

Albus, D., Klein, J. A., Liu, K., Thurlow, M., National Center on Educational Outcomes, M. N., Council of Chief State School Officers, W. C., & National Association of State Directors of Special Education, W. C. (2004). Connecting English Language Proficiency, Statewide Assessments, and Classroom Performance. National Center on Educational Outcomes, University Of Minnesota.

Alleydog.com (1998). Bottom-Up processing defined - Psychology glossary. Retrieved from http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Bottom-Up%20Processing.

de Oliveira, L. C. (2011). In Their Shoes: Teachers Experience the Needs of English Language Learners through a Math Simulation.Multicultural Education, 19(1), 59-62.

Dong, Y. (2004). Preparing Secondary Subject Area Teachers to Teach Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Students. Clearing House, 77(5), 202-204.

Echevarria, J., Richards-Tutor, C., Chinn, V. P., & Ratleff, P. (2011). Did They Get It? The Role of Fidelity in Teaching English Learners. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(6), 425-434.

Faltis, C., & Hudelson, S. (1998). A theoretical framework for learning and language acquisition in bilingual education settings. In Bilingual education in elementary and secondary school communities: Toward understanding and caring (pp. 83-108). Boston, MA: Allyn and Boston.

Fleming, D., Bangou, F., & Fellus, O. (2011). ESL Teacher-Candidates' Beliefs about Language.TESL Canada Journal, 29(1), 39-56.

Kim, H. (2011). Parents' Perceptions, Decisions, and Influences: Korean Immigrant Parents Look at Language Learning and Their Children's Identities. Multicultural Education, 18(2), 16-19.

Lee, S. J. (2012). New Talk about ELL Students. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(8), 66-69.

McIntyre, E., Kyle, D., Chen, C., Munoz, M., & Beldon, S. (2010). Teacher Learning and ELL Reading Achievement in Sheltered Instruction Classrooms: Linking Professional Development to Student Development. Literacy Research And Instruction, 49(4), 334-351.

Navarro, A. M. (2008). Building Schema for English Language Learners. Online Submission.

Building Empathy

As teachers, we must understand the struggle that ELL students face and provide an outlet for them to express themselves to make them feel welcome. We also must take into consideration that they have to take on so much information in a lesser time than most students and we should differentiate our teaching style to meet their needs as well.

While focusing on your students needs, it is also important to take into consideration their parent’s perceptions. Hye Yeong Kim (2011) has written an article expressing parent perceptions on their ELL students’ education. This article is also strongly in favor of building empathy for your students, but more importantly it helps you to understand the parent’s point of view on their child’s edcation. Kim places strong emphasis on the importance of the students’ native language and how it plays a vital role in learning a new language.

Having an ELL student surrounded by their native language provides a vital source of social capital. “Social capital is defined as the resources embedded in the networks of relationships among groups which may enhance an individual’s productivity” (Kim, 2011, pg. 16). People that can offer educational enhancements outside the classrooms must surround ELL students in order for them to be successful in the classroom. It is also important to note that ELL students can benefit from being around their native language outside the classroom because it can provide opportunities within their native culture and community.

“Bilingualism has been found to enhance ELLs’ academic achievement only when ELLs can continue to communicate with their parents in L1 (native language) and access the social capital of their parents and the L1 community” (Kim, 2011, pg. 16).

Due to the rigorous demands of the American classroom, ELL students are not allowed to focus on learning their native language so it is crucial to have them interacting in this language at home. In Kim’s article, there is a parent study that is discussed.

In this study, parents are asked how they feel they benefit their child’s education and whether or not the native language should be spoken and enforced at home. The findings of the study showed that “none of the participants were aware that literacy in their native language could provide a good foundation that could be applied to the development of literacy in the majority language, English” (Kim, 2011, pg. 19). Most of the parents thought they were hindering their children by speaking the native language at home, but this study shows the exact opposite.

The final case for building empathy comes in the form of a math experiment conducted by Luciana C. de Oliveira (2011). Most people feel that math is universal because the numbers all look the same in any printed language and the concepts of addition; subtraction, multiplication, etc. do not change from country to country; like language does. The purpose of this experiment was to “help teachers move beyond this narrow view and recognize that all content areas, including mathematics, are highly dependent on language for meaning-making” (de Oliveira, 2011, pg. 60). In the study, de Oliveira taught a class of English-speaking teachers a math lesson in Brazilian Portuguese. In the first part of the lesson, de Oliveira did not offer any ELL strategies, only speaking in a normal pace and not once did she use the English language.

The second half of the experiment, de Oliveira used the same math lesson in the same language, but she incorporated ELL strategies. The strategies used, (some can be found on the strategies page) were: modeling, pausing, paraphrasing, repetition, opportunities to ask questions, realia, and writing the words on the board to reinforce what was being said. The teachers found that the second lesson was a lot easier to understand based on the strategies used, even though none of them knew the language. At the end of the experiment, the teachers had developed a newfound empathy for their ELL students. Most said they felt frustrated and did not like being in the class for the first lesson. After the strategies were introduced, the teachers felt much more comfortable with the lesson. “Teachers really don't know what it's like until they've experienced it themselves. Empathy would drive a teacher to want to have a more informed approach” (de Oliveira, 2011, pg. 62).

After we have taken a more informed approach, we must learn that acquiring a langauge does not happen over night. The next section will highlight how students learn a second language.

Language Acquisition

These include:

The learning-acquisition distinction – internalizing new language knowledge, storing it and using it for communication.
The natural order hypothesis – engaged in authentic communication that changes when trying to incorporate the new language.
The monitor hypothesis – learned language serves as a monitor for what we wish to say.
The input hypothesis – “receive abundant amounts of comprehensible input, and the internal mechanism must process the input and assign it to the developing order of acquisition” (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998, pg. 94).
The affective filter hypothesis – how the learner feels about the new language and the willingness to become like the native speakers.

The Monitor theory defines acquisition as occurring “below the level of consciousness as a result of participating in the authentic communicative settings in which the focus is on meaning” (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998, pg. 94). The Monitor theory does not agree with Faltis and Hudelson’s idea that learning a new language takes place in oral or written communication with others, but that it can be indirectly related to the output of a new language. Even though Faltis and Hudelson do not agree with the Monitor theory, they still pull certain aspects from it.

The second theory the authors base their framework on is Michael Long’s (1981) Interaction Model. The Interaction model focuses on the importance of negotiating the meaning of the language and making the input comprehensible.

This theory is strongly in favor of comprehensible input being the primary cause of new language acquisition. It helps clear up any misunderstandings and repair interaction. When a social interaction occurs, the less competent speaker has a chance to ask questions if they do not understand what is being said. This leads to an answer (or comprehensible input), thus allowing for language acquisition. By combining the Model theory and Interaction model, two important goals emerge for teaching ELLs. These goals are (1) producing students who are proficient in the new language and (2) making sure these students can use the language to participate in the classroom and social settings. One of the main principles that Faltis and Hudelson point out is that proficiency in a student’s native language will contribute to them being proficient in a new language. Referring back to the building empathy section, the authors agree that native language literacy should be promoted.“Learners who feel confident being literate in their primary language venture into the second language, using or applying their primary language knowledge and abilities for reading and writing in the second language” (Faltis & Hudelson, 1998, pg. 102).

According to Faltis and Hudelson, when it comes to second language acquisition; communication and social interaction are an integral part of the learning process. The strategies associated with teaching ELL students largely require group work or partnerships, allowing them to learn from their peers. This communicative approach to teaching ELLs “emphasizes learner-centered instruction, pedagogical task-based activities, and a concentration on function rather than form” (Fleming, Bangou, & Fellus, 2011, pg 41). Fleming, Bangou and Fellus agree that second language acquisition occurs through social contexts, but they also feel that language syntax is important to the learning process as well. This is why teaching ELLs the academic language is just as important as teaching them the physical language. They will learn how to use syntax and grammar but will also be able to understand the terminology used in the classroom.

Resources

Academic Language

When they compared students’ performance in their mainstream classrooms and their bilingual assistance classrooms, they found that students performed better in the ELL classes than they did in the mainstream classes.They also found that the ELL teachers focused more on the academic language when working with the ELL student than the mainstream teachers did. It is important to note that this study was conducted over ten years ago. With states implementing the Common Core standards, all classrooms will be focusing on academic language in the future. However, Albus, et al. has shown us that the students who were introduced to academic language performed better in the classroom.

Echevarria, Richards-Tutor, Chinn, and Ratleff (2011) also wrote a report on how academic language plays a role in student achievement. They found that academic language was “particularly challenging for ELLs, who are still acquiring English at the same time that school tasks require a high level of English usage” (Echevarria, Richards-Tutor, Chin & Ratleff, 2011, pg. 425). Echevarria, et al. goes on to discuss how to best help ELL students understand academic language. Their main finding is to help students through research based practices. They claim that research based practices are only as good as the teachers implementing them. Meaning that if you are going to use these practices you need to use them consistently.

Echevarria, et al. compared teachers who used these practices daily to teachers who used them sporadically. They found that the teachers who used them consistently had better performing students.

The research-based practices they are referring to are the SIOP Model of instruction. SIOP stands for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol and is an excellent method to follow when teaching ELL students. “Sheltered instruction is a means for making grade-level academic content (e.g., science, social studies, math) more accessible for language minority students while at the same time promoting their language and literacy development” (McIntyre, Kyle, Chen, Munoz, & Beldon, 2010, pg. 337). The SIOP model focuses on social interaction among teachers and students, as well as students interacting with other students.

Echevarria, et al. tested how the SIOP Model correlated to the content area literacy and the students language development. They found that if teachers continually used the SIOP Model then it would help ELL students meet high academic standards.The importance of academic language in the ELL environment can contribute to their high levels of achievement. With the introduction of the Common Core, all classrooms will have a better focus on academic language in the future. This will, in turn, allow ELL students to understand the content on standardized tests and help them perform better in the classroom.

One way, the SIOP model has been proven to improve students acadamic language is through building students background knowledge. The SIOP model uses this method with outstanding results.

Building Background Knowledge

In the bottom-up mode, we start with the smallest piece of information and work our way up to a more solid representation of the information. The top-down process requires “one’s higher level of thinking to process information to bring forth a schema” (Navarro, 2008, pg 5). If both processes are activated simultaneously, than a reader is successfully building schema. Navarro also points out that teachers need to be aware of their ELL students’ backgrounds in order for them to build an active schema.

As teachers we need to encourage building schema by helping students understand and learn how to build on their background knowledge. By using strategies to help ELLs pull academic information from their culture and prior knowledge, you are helping them to be successful in school. If an ELL student does not understand how to build on their background knowledge they will not be able to comprehend the text they are reading.

Many educators feel that ELLs should disregard their culture and focus solely on our culture. “Instead of building on students’ backgrounds, the assimilationist perspective encourages educators to disregard native languages and cultures” (Lee, 2012, pg. 66). Students should never be forced to forget about their culture or told that ours is better. In order for students to succeed in school, their culture should be regarded as important, just as much as ours is.

ELL students can benefit from both cultures because they will learn how to apply their background knowledge from one culture to the other. While they are learning a new langauge and culture, they can bring this ideas home and share them with their family that do not attend school and are new to the culture. They will also be able to get jobs in their areas and become a commodity in that workforce because they can speak two langauges.

Stacey J. Lee (2012) documents a study done on the International Network High Schools in New York City. These 15 network schools “are designed to serve the unique academic, social, and emotional needs of recently arrived immigrant youth who are English learners” (Lee, 2012, pg. 67). Lee (2012) states that the educational challenges ELLs face are the result of teachers not understanding their background and culture. The International Network schools make it their mission to incorporate ELL culture into their studies. In these schools students are encouraged to use their native culture to build upon their academic knowledge. These schools boast a higher graduation rate than most of the high schools in New York City. Encouraging students to use their background knowledge is proven to yield successful ELL students.

Encouraging schema is another way to build empathy for your students. The four main areas discussed in this section provide a cycle-of-life type idea to the concept of ESL instruction.