Meeting the Challenge of Educating English Language Learners - Scholarship Essay Example

?Meeting the Challenge of Educating English Language Learners Introduction: Historically, the main purpose for education in the United s has been to produce a future generation of productive citizens. Thus, for many educators education has been considered to be the only means of formally preparing students to face the challenges of tomorrow. Educating thousands of students to become creative and industrious has been a phenomenal feat. Particularly, in the last few decades one of the major difficulties involved in the education of thousands has been the substantial number of students entering the United States from other countries. BIBLIOGRAPHY noted that these foreign students are the fastest growing group entering our schools, especially in urban settings. Although there are millions of immigrants in this country and endless resources geared towards their education, the educational performance of our new community members is one of the lowest in the country ( BIBLIOGRAPHY). As an educator for over seventeen years, the author of this paper believes that the challenge of educating English as Second Language learners is without a question a task which has been adequately explored by only a few districts. These districts are the ones that are truly prepared to see the value of language and culture as an opportunity to educate learners and to effectively integrate them into our schools and community at large. Hence, it is imperative for all districts to understand the magnitude of the challenge of teaching language and content to English as Second Language learners within the same hours of a day and in the same number of days per year as English learners. The Challenge Despite the efforts of educational leaders to educate all students it is interesting to analyze the impact of this education on newcomers. Firstly, although school districts continuously develop new initiatives and interventions the end result is usually the same - the initiatives essentially create a lack of access to meaningful education to the newcomer. Thus, one can conclude that school districts are still in the dark about how to specifically and effectively educate newcomers since most of the interventions become new failing attempts to successfully educate these students from foreign countries. A second rationale for the lack of effectiveness of these new initiatives is the fact that former immigrant students were intimately connected to members with the same cultural and language background. The author of this paper believes that it is this network of support which provided a source of strength and acculturation for the continued success of a given group. However, it is evident that the United States is now experiencing a tremendously large increase of students who are new immigrants who are isolated from mainstream society due to the lack of connections, resources and networking experienced by the former immigrants. At an alarmingly rapid rate more and more immigrants from oppressed nations are entering our cities, usually, as refugees. As such the challenges of these immigrant students are more severe than any of the previous groups. Consequently, it is has become critical to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps of these immigrant students. Educational institutions within the school districts are not prepared or equipped to assimilate the multiple academic and socio emotional needs of these new students and their families. Accordingly, the institutions are faced with the daunting task of educating individuals who not only have diverse language and cultural backgrounds in English but also individuals who have limited exposure to formal education. Moreover, many of these students have experienced trauma in their home land and are now facing the acculturation shock of trying to fit in to our communities. The assimilation process which incorporates student engagement, parent engagement, discipline problems and eventually student exclusion has a significant impact in the culture of the school. Exclusion, the foremost by-product of the assimilation process could be voluntary or involuntary. It has created the highest dropout rate among all identified groups. Teacher Preparedness The lack of academic achievement of these immigrant students is evident when external audits are conducted. The findings from Federal or State visits often reveal that school districts have not complied with the minimum conditions of providing meaningful equal access to educational opportunities for English as Second Language learners. One of the main contributing factors for the absence of equal opportunities for these immigrant students is the lack to preparedness of teachers. BIBLIOGRAPHY has discovered that teachers lack the formal training and overall understanding of how to educate English as Second Language learners. This happens in part because few educational institutions such as teachers’ colleges prepare teachers to educate these learners. The core content of teacher preparation programs ignores culture but more importantly culture alone does not provide future teachers with the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively educate English as Second Language learners. At this point every newly hired teacher needs to be exposed to a rigorous professional development plan to prepare them to be effective teachers when educating English as Second Language learners. On the other hand, previously hired teachers in districts follow the traditional education approach that maintains or increase the academic gap of immigrant students. The overall support given to teachers on how to improve their practices via professional development is marginal or nonexistent BIBLIOGRAPHY. Despite the evident results revealed in data analysis BIBLIOGRAPHY, the professional development implemented is geared to impact the majority of students and does not target the specific language needs of English as Second Language learners. Unless we address the knowledge gap of our educational leaders and teachers there will be no fundamental change to the way in which we educate our new generation of Americans in this country. Language acquisition programs A second key contributor to the cultural and language gaps of our new students is the quality of our language acquisition programs. BIBLIOGRAPHY suggests that these programs lack the theoretical framework and overall resources to provide what English as Second Language learners need. One reason for this inadequacy in the language acquisition programs is the fact that the state requirements for these programs and teachers qualifications are not designed to face the challenge of effectively educating English as Second Language learners. The main focus of their work is to create policies and reforms that affect all students, always hoping that these same changes will affect English as Second Language learners. Currently in Massachusetts, the academic performance of English as Second Language learners is the lowest among all identified subgroups.BIBLIOGRAPHY Analysis of academic performance of English as Second Language learners In the analysis of the academic performance of English as Second Language learners, it is inaccurate to assess the entire group as the lowest performing group without specifying that within the group there are students who recently entered the public school and there are others who have been at school for more than 5 years. The true assessment of English as Second Language learners’ performance lies in the assessment of their language acquisition progress over time, using time in the US as a component to assess the quality of implementation. The author of this paper believes that the establishment of a correlation between performance and language acquisition process would not only give a more accurate picture of the progress made by each group of students but it would provide an instant evaluation of the programs used to educate English as Second Language learners. This initial intervention is vital to the academic future of our “new” immigrant learners. Another important aspect in the analysis is the efficiency of state assessments. These assessments not only measure content knowledge performance but they compare the performance of non-English speakers with English speakers. The fundamental issue to analyze is the correlation between language progress and access to content. Ultimately the relevant correlation that needs to be established is one between language acquisition of the students and their academic performance. Funding Often times we, as educators, site the lack of resources in the midst of budget cuts as plausible. In reality, English as Second Language students need additional funding to provide a number of interventions to ensure successful program implementation. However, the funding formula is complex. In general terms, each English as Second Language learner receives an allocation of around $3,300 extra based on chapter 70 formulas correct BIBLIOGRAPHY. For example, if a district has 5,000 students identified as English as Second Language learners the total funding allocation is about $16’500.000 dollars. However, this funding is allocated to the district and not to the students directly, therefore the funding is utilized for all district expenditure, not necessarily for the direct services needed. Obviously, districts generate expenses to maintain buildings, transportation, teachers and additional support personnel to provide direct and indirect services to all students. Therefore the crucial questions are: (i) how the funding, earmarked for English as Second Language learners, actually reaches the level of services necessary for the students to have meaningful access to education?, and (ii) once money is allocated do districts know how to use these funds to create high quality language acquisition programs? Case Study: Worcester Public Schools is a district with over 23,000 students; about 32% of them are English as Second Language learners. Out of this group about 7,300 students about 8% of them are students with significant interrupted education. The major language groups represented are Spanish, Vietnamese, Albanian, Arab and Portuguese. In the last few years we (QUALIFY WE) have restructured all language acquisition programs and as a result the overall academic performance of these students has improved significantly, in particular, we were able to move students from levels I and II to levels III-V in a relatively short period of time. The movement of our students along the continuum to level V required firstly, our focusing on the restructuring of every aspect of the implementation of language acquisition programs in the district. The pivotal force generating the overhaul of language acquisition programs was the Department of Justice’s findings that highlighted the lack of access to meaningful educational opportunities. Given these findings every dimension of program implementation was examined and as such it was mandated that the district develop an action plan to correct the implementation procedure. As a result an agreement was reached to change and to demonstrate that all aspects of the education of English as Second Language learners will be geared towards ensuring all students have access to meaningful educational opportunities. Ideally one year: Since 2002 the state has been struggling with a controversial law that requires English as Second Language learners to learn English in English only environments and for “ideally one year” based on DESE guidelines. This came as a result of the referendum question that despite the lack of validity based on research there is a call for the elimination of bilingual education and the adoption of Sheltered English Immersion. The end result is the creation of a new model that requires districts to develop language acquisition programs. After many attempts to obtain guidance from the state, in particular in defining how the “ideally one year” would look like, we decided to focus on the elements, based on research which were necessary to provide the best access to meaningful education. It is evident that the state guidelines are in conflict with federal guidelines. The state recommends the ideally one year concept and the federal guideline requires services for as long as the students need it. Hence, the fundamental legal question surrounding the education of English as Second Language learners remains - is the ideally one year and English only the best way to educate English as Second Language learners or do they require services for as long as they need as required by the federal law? This question is always at the center of state or federal audits. Furthermore, the central question is; are English as Second Language learners having equal access to a meaningful education as required by EEOA (Equal Education Opportunity Act)? Unfortunately based on these audits it is determined that English as Second Language learners lack full access to equal opportunities. We(QUALIFY WE) find ourselves answering audit after audit to convince the state or the federal government that we are doing better than what the results are showing. The programs and structures we have created in Worcester provide a serious attempt to demonstrate that we are finding the best available component to provide meaningful academic success for English as Second Language learners. Every action step made in public education must ensure that it includes the complex process of language development for English as Second Language learners; if this is not taking place we are doomed to continue failing this segment of the student population. Leadership: Taking into account leadership support, we instituted professional development training for school leaders to understand how to implement high quality language acquisition programs. The content of this training was developed by a partnership with the state and some of the largest urban districts in the state. The overall goal was to help administrators support classroom teachers that have completed the required language acquisition training suggested by the state. It would also help administrators provide mentoring and coaching to content teachers to ensure the teaching practices learned during training are implemented in the classrooms. This specific administrator training requires about 15 contact hours. At this point all principals and assistant principals have completed this training successfully. ESL Labs: In addition to leadership training the district provides direct ESL services. The district ensures that all ESL teachers have the best ESL curriculum and material. Each ESL classroom allows every student to interact and learn in a true multi-sensory environment. This setting was specifically designed under the concept of the newly adopted idea of educating English as Second Language learners in “ideally one year”. This special ESL environment became the best and most effective way to educate English as Second Language learners at the beginning level of language development. This environment is designated as the ESL Laboratories, we started with 14 and now we currently have over 40 of them across the elementary schools. This intervention accelerated the transition of thousands of students in levels I and II to levels III-V. The challenge of providing the best possible setting for English as Second Language learners to gain access to language development in the shortest amount of time generated the creation of the ESL Labs. This new environment was the port of entry and the beginning of the educational experience for English as Second Language learners. These labs primarily serve students in levels I and II who have a variety of language backgrounds. This approach provided a rigorous environment in a developmentally appropriate classroom where the students feel valued and respected. This initial experience represents an essential component in the educational experience of the child. It builds their self-esteem helping them understand that their differences are a source of strength in which language and culture is perceived as a gift. This classroom offers a true multi-sensory setting to learn language in a safe and rigorous setting. It provides all the resources necessary to develop language such as listening centers, smart boards, speaker system to enhance oral language exposure, new curriculum materials and a dually licensed teacher supported by a team of English as a second administrators and other experts to ensure every minute of instruction is used for language and content development. Recruitment: A significant component in the implementation of successful programs was the development of a plan to produce the best candidates for future teaching positions. This program is an ongoing professional development for instructional assistance and tutors. High quality professional development not only supported staff to provide direct instruction but to provide a very innovative way to recruit fully qualified and experienced staff for teaching positions for the following year. These staff members hold a bachelor’s degree and/or a content license. They work throughout the year with a coach and trainers to earn the ESL license. The professional development offered is a one day a month session for the entire year to teach the skills necessary to provide the very best support to students in both regular education classrooms and self-contained environments. In particular, the staff was able to make connections with content areas and experiences students have in classrooms thereby ensuring ESL strategies are utilized to provide meaningful access to content. At the end of this process, for the last few years, many of these professionals became licensed in ESL and were hired as ESL teachers; creating a great way to recruit fully qualified and experienced teachers. True high quality professional development support: High quality professional development is a central component of teacher effectiveness in educating English as Second Language learners. The research BIBLIOGRAPHY is very consistent on how professional development should be implemented. However, it is rarely implemented in an effective manner. Firstly, for efficient implementation to take place the program must be connected to and derived from teachers’ work with their students. Secondly, it must be sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported by modeling, coaching, and the collective solving of specific problems of practice. Thirdly, it must be connected to other aspects of school change (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995, p. 598). The cornerstone of our programs has been the support given to first ESL teachers and then content teachers. Without emphasizing that the first place to provide meaningful interventions to English as Second Language learners is with ESL teachers, the state has focused on asking content teachers to become trained, with a very weak requirement that does not enforce the training. Further, it is important to note that the requirements to become license in ESL are very superficial. The main requirement is to take the MTEL test with the state. Given this apparent deficiency we developed a comprehensive training to help teachers to teach ESL during the ideally one year in self-contained environments and throughout the continuum of services offered for English as Second Language learners. Moreover, it is important to note that we are committed to provide language supports for as long as the students need it. As a result teachers became very effective in teaching the language and preparing the students to enter regular classrooms successfully. This transition from ESL Labs to other classrooms happens fairly rapidly, within one and a half to two years, students reach the intermediate or transition level necessary to access meaningful understanding of content instruction. Students may transition either partially or fully but it is essential that transitioning occurs to environment where the receiving teacher is equipped to continue the language development of the students thus ensuring that the social and academic language is being nurture. Dual License Project: Another innovative program was the creation of a Dual License Project. This is an intensive program to help content teachers become license in ESL and to continue their content teaching ensuring that English as Second Language learners in their classrooms are engaged 90 to 100% of the time. The project ascertains that students gain full access to content in elementary education settings and that they earn the credits they need for graduation in the high schools. Additionally, content teachers at the secondary level would be able to provide support to English as Second Language learners in the academic content areas. The ultimate purpose is to provide a content teacher with a professional development program designed to prepare them to become ESL Licensed. Initially, the focus was primarily at the High School level, in Math, ELA, and Science and consisted of cohorts of approximately 15-20 teachers. Subsequently, we opened this opportunity to level 4 schools and all elementary teachers. The project prepared licensed content teachers to become effective SEI classroom teachers and to learn the skills necessary to pass the ESL License test. This intensive training program required that teachers complete the four categories of SEI Professional Development and participate in 30 contact hours of direct instruction, classroom observations, readings and contact with mentors. Lastly, at the end of the practicum candidates needed to have a final evaluative observation providing valuable feedback. During the last 3 years we have trained over 60 content teachers to become licensed in ESL. These content teachers all work outside the language acquisition department. A program for students with interrupted formal education: Worcester is the largest resettlement city in Massachusetts. In the last few years we have had hundreds of English as Second Language learners coming to our school with significant interruption of their formal education. Their primary needs are language skills and exposure to formal educational settings. These students come to our country as a part of a relocation attempt because they come from war torn regions and as such they are usually victims of significant trauma. Considerable interruptions usually mean the student has missed three or more years of schooling, often due to migration, lack of continued access to education in the home country or civil disruptions in their home country. These English as Second Language students are often performing four or more years below grade level when they enter the Worcester Public Schools System. On account of the significant need to ensure that these students are prepared to enter our comprehensible schools a new school was created to provide the best environment for these students, the New Citizens Center. Students at the New Citizens Center often come from a background of disruption, chaos or trauma which may have led to significant interruptions in their formal education. These students can be physically or emotionally unwell because of the trauma faced in the past. Often parents of New Citizens Center students are also new to the United States, parents may lack the knowledge of how to navigate the United States school and health care systems to meet their children’s needs. The New Citizens Center serves as an oasis of support and a reference point for other services to help students transition successfully to the United States academic system and to help them understand other services that might be available to them from other sectors. The teachers at New Citizens Center strive to be especially sensitive to the needs of students and often serve as student advocates. These teachers foster students’ confidence in their own abilities. Thus, they work to create an atmosphere of acceptance and safety for students who may have known little of either in earlier phases of their lives. This unique school offers small class sizes of up to 20 students to allow more direct, personal contact with students who arrive with extreme variations in their schooling exposure. Each student has had a different school experience, thus teachers in the New Citizens Center individualize coursework to begin at each student’s level of expertise and exposure and to address any gaps in their schooling while supporting students’ learning to help them achieve at an age-appropriate level. Students may be moved from one class or level to another without changing their status within the New Citizens Center. As students perform on different subjects at varying rates academically, changing classes permit teachers to adjust for variances in performance allowing for a more dynamic classroom experience. For example, a student may be able to pass from an introductory level to an intermediate level within a semester. Naturally, this transfer is subject to the teacher’s discretion. Often there are students of varying ages in one class, though never with a gap of more than five years. The New Citizens Center allows teachers the flexibility to determine the best division of class periods and subject attention to meet each individual student’s needs within the constraints of the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. Accordingly, teachers in the New Citizens Center work with students to help them to develop strategies in learning content area material while simultaneously acquiring English and learning ‘United States school culture’. Further, by building on what students know, teachers give students an opportunity to develop academic skills that will help them to transition to mainstream courses once exiting the program. Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks guide the curriculum. Likewise, the standards that students are to achieve for their grade-appropriate ages provide the guides for helping students prepare for grade level academic success. While using the frameworks, individual teachers choose the most salient aspects of the curriculum to focus students’ learning in each subject. Read More