Leading Learning for ELL Students

Strategies for Success

Catherine Beck, Heidi Pace

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138205284
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315465999
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Grounded in current research and award-winning practice, this important book provides a blueprint for school leaders to successfully implement programs and policies for creating an equitable learning environment for English Language Learners (ELLs). Full of accessible examples, strategies, checklists and solutions, this book covers topics such as elementary and secondary home visitation, family literacy programs, first-generation college attendance, family-school partnerships, second-language instruction, culturally responsive teaching and professional development. The guidance provided in Leading Learning for ELL Students can be put into practice immediately, and will help leaders at all levels address the changing landscape of their student populations to ensure the success of all students.

Successful Strategies for

1

Immigrant Students

Immigrant children attend schools that are not just racially and ethnically segregated but also linguistically isolated.

(Morse, 2005, p. 2)

Mario’s Story

I come from El Salvador. I lived there with my grandmother. My father went to the United States when I was born. My mother left when I was a baby. Although I talked on the phone to my parents sometimes, my grandmother is the only real family I have known.

El Salvador is not safe. You have to pay money for protection. We were robbed and lost almost everything. A threatening note was left on our door one day. My parents and my grandmother decided I had to come to the U.S. and live with my parents. I did not want to leave my friends and my grandmother.

I traveled fifty-seven days to get here. I mostly walked and got some rides. I was helped by Coyotes, people that you pay to get you from El Salvador to the United States. I crossed from Mexico to Texas by swimming across the river. Once on land, I was picked up by border patrol. I was fourteen years old. I have a court date coming up. A judge will decide whether to deport me or let me stay in the U.S.

Mario told us his story as he sat around the table with seven other high school ELLs including Assane, Amadou, Babacar, Oumar, Alejandra, Carlos and Jorge. Assane, Amadou, Babacar and Oumar are from Senegal. They did not know each other prior to coming to our small Colorado community. They each described the difficulty of being a Muslim and practicing Islam in a largely Christian community. They are here legally. Alejandra, like Mario, is from El Salvador. Also, like Mario, she has an upcoming court date to determine her fate. She lives with her sisters. Her mom is still in El Salvador. Carlos is from Guatemala. Jorge is from Chile. They told me about the difficulty of learning a new language, integrating into an American school and being different from the kids who grew up in the United States.

This group of seven students represents just one of the ELL classes in one high school in our small rural mountain school district in Colorado. Their stories, and ones like these, are becoming more of the norm in classrooms across the U.S. Increasingly, communities with historically few immigrant families are now seeing an influx of students enrolling from various parts of the world.

Unlike immigrants from other eras, “today’s immigrants arrive from widely diverse source countries, and are increasingly likely to resettle in nontraditional states and in rural communities, areas that often have the least experience and/or infrastructure to help students learn English and adapt to their new schools and neighborhoods” (Morse, 2005, p. 1).

Sometimes the ELLs are the immigrants, both legal and illegal, with or without a parent, and other times it is the parents who immigrated and then had their children in America. According to a January 2015 report from the Pew Research Center, the number of immigrants has held steady since 2012 at 11.2 million. With regard to school-age youth, the report states that “children with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent made up 6.9% of students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade.” While the majority of these students were born in the U.S. (5.5 percent), according to the report, 1.4 percent of the students were also illegal immigrants. The Pew Research Center, in another report, further projects that, “Among children, the share who are immigrants or who have an immigrant parent will rise to 34% in 2050 from 23% in 2005” (Passel & Cohn, 2008).

Undocumented children have had the right to attend public school since 1982, when the U.S. Supreme Court made their ruling in Plyler vs. Doe (457 U.S. 202). Yet these students often have difficulty receiving an education that is equitable to their English-speaking peers. In addition to the obvious barrier of language, students immigrating from other countries have logistical barriers to obtaining a diploma. In our school district, for example, we have a number of immigrant families with children who received little formal schooling in their native countries, due to various circumstances. These students may enter the American school system at 17 or 18 years old. Without intensive intervention, demonstrating proficiency in alternative ways or having the option of waiving requirements, these students will age out (i.e., turn 21) before they can earn enough credits to graduate. To avoid this scenario, based on personal testimony, families sometimes claim a student is younger than he/she really is in order to stay in school long enough to earn a diploma.

Regardless of these scenarios, it is our job to provide these students with the best possible education as long as they are in our schools. Districts and schools can help to facilitate their transition to a new country and school by implementing programs in four areas: (1) establishing newcomer classes; (2) providing a welcome center; (3) conducting family outreach; and (4) planning extended learning opportunities.

Newcomer Classes

Newcomers are typically defined as students who have been in the U.S. less than a year, and who demonstrate limited English proficiency. This definition can be used as a guideline for schools and districts to determine who enrolls in the program. If your school has the capacity to be flexible in who is labeled a “newcomer,” more students will benefit. For example, a student may have greater English proficiency but no background knowledge and skills to navigate the school system. A newcomer may have arrived 13 months ago and still need additional assistance with the language. A student may have moved three times to different states and schools and needs to be acclimated even though he or she may have arrived in the U.S. two years prior. A successful program will consider the individual needs of each student and be designed accordingly.

Newcomer classes, usually held at the middle and high school levels, are intended to help students more quickly and easily integrate into their enrolled schools. Elementary-aged newcomers, instead of having a separate program, are generally guided through a newcomer-type process within the context of their regular classroom and with the assistance of English Language Development specialists, counselors, administrators, student buddies and others.

At the secondary level, many interventions are also provided in students’ academic classes, but the addition of a separate newcomers’ class offers some additional advantages. These classes equip students with intensive English language learning opportunities and a safe place to practice their learning. They are also intended to help students understand American culture and the culture of the school and community to which they have arrived. They encourage students to ask questions without fear of embarrassment. They provide an orientation to everything from grades to lunchroom protocols to classroom and school behavioral expectations and social functions. Students are empowered to go out into the school and practice their newly acquired skills with adults and peers with whom they feel most comfortable.

Another important role of a newcomer program is to assist students in exploring areas of interest. This includes making sure students know about the various clubs, athletic teams, after-school activities, etc., that are available in the school. The newcomer class can assist students with getting information, signing up, understanding any prerequisites or try-outs required and so on. Several immigrant students I spoke with told me that they learned English more quickly when they participated on a team or in a club. In joining one or more of these, the students found that they had shared interests with their English-speaking peers outside of the regular classroom setting, and friendships began to form.

While the duration of newcomer programs varies, continuing them for a minimum of a semester is advisable, with a year being preferable. Many programs are established as a full year or longer and are in a self-contained classroom where the majority of academic classes are also taught through the newcomer program. If, alternatively, newcomers are taking their academic classes alongside proficient English speakers, then providing co-teaching English Language Development staff in the content classes is recommended.

According to the Center for Applied Linguistics Study, Helping Newcomer Students Succeed in Secondary Schools and Beyond, “Not only do these newcomers have to master complex course content, usually with incomplete background knowledge and little understanding of the way that U.S. schools are structured and operate, but they have fewer years to master the English language than do students who enter at elementary grades” (Short & Boyson, 2012). This is certainly part of the reason that “the dropout rate for foreign-born and immigrant students remains above 30 percent, three times that of U.S.-born white students” (Mitchell, 2016).

If there is no time during the school day, due to scheduling and/or staffing constraints, this class can also be done as an after-school club and/or as a summer program. Funding sources to offer a full program can be pursued through Title III dollars as well as state and local grants. Home visits, described in detail in chapter 2, are an ideal way to let families know of this class/program as well as other opportunities for ELLs.

Although newcomer programs should be designed to fit the local context, the program goals should include:

• Flexible scheduling of courses and students
• Careful staffing plus targeted professional development
• Basic literacy development materials for adolescents and reading interventions adapted for ELLs
• Content area instruction to fill gaps in educational backgrounds
• Extended time for instruction and support (e.g., after school, Saturday and summer programs)
• Connections with families and social services
• Diagnostics and monitoring of student data
• Transition measures to ease newcomers into the regular school programs or beyond high school
  (Short & Boyson, 2012)

A searchable database of exemplary secondary newcomer programs, compiled by the Center for Applied Linguistics, can be found at http://www.cal.org/what-we-do/projects/newcomer. This site provides a comprehensive list of programs from around the country and includes information about staffing, curriculum, funding, assessments, scheduling and additional programmatic details.

Welcome Center

A welcome center is a place to greet new immigrant families and orient them to the school system and the community. Depending on the size of the school district, the center could be a separate function or it can be incorporated within the central office or a school with existing personnel.

There are a myriad of ways to set up the center which will be guided by your local resources and other circumstances or constraints. Following is a menu of welcome center functions from which to choose, add and/or adapt.

• Greeters—Assign an individual(s) to greet the families. As the old adage goes, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” A friendly face for someone in a new land and in a new school system makes the best first impression. If the greeter does not speak the language of the family, provide a translator and information for the family to access a community resource for translation.
• Enrollment—Provide an option in the welcome center to register new families for the local school with a dedicated computer or bank of computers along with instructions in the major languages of your school district. Include, as part of this process, a home language survey to determine the best placement for the student(s). In addition to the survey, a language assessment of the students could also be a part of the enrollment process. Best practice would include having someone available to assist the family through the entire enrollment process.
• Video—Display a short (e.g., five-minute) video in the center (an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Meet the Authors
• Acknowledgments
• eResources
• Preface
• 1. Successful Strategies for Immigrant Students
• 2. The Three-Legged Stool: Balancing the Roles of the School, the Students and the Parents
• 3. High-Impact Professional Development
• 4. Culturally Proficient Pedagogy
• 5. Leveling the Playing Field
• 6. Preparing for Life after High School
• 7. Diversity vs. Inclusion
• Index