Dispelling Misconceptions About English Language Learners

Research-Based Ways to Improve Instruction

Barbara Gottschalk

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781416628286
• eBook ISBN: 9781416628316
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Nearly three-quarters of public schools in the United States enroll English language learners (ELLs). That means teachers at all grade levels need to know how to help these students achieve full academic English language proficiency.

In Dispelling Misconceptions About English Language Learners, Barbara Gottschalk dispels 10 common misconceptions about ELLs and gives teachers the information they need to help their ELLs succeed in the classroom.

From her perspective as a teacher of English as a second language, Gottschalk answers several key questions:
*Just who is an English language learner?
*Why is it important to support home language maintenance and promote family engagement?
*What are the foundational principles for instruction that help educators teach ELLs across the content areas?
*How can teachers recognize and incorporate the background knowledge and experiences ELLs bring to class?
*Why is it important to maintain high standards and expectations for all students, including ELLs?
*How can a teacher tell when an ELL needs special education versus special teaching?

By answering these questions, and more, Gottschalk gives teachers a crystal-clear understanding of how to reach ELLs at each stage of English language acquisition. Her expert guidance reinforces for teachers what they are already doing right and helps them understand what they might need to be doing differently.

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Chapter 1

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Just Who Is an English Language Learner?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Misconception: "He's not an ELL. He was born here."

Can you pick out the two ELLs, the former ELL, and the three never ELLs in Figure 1.1? You can't—and that's the point.

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Figure 1.1. Who is the ELL?

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This chapter will give you information about how ELLs are identified and assessed. You'll also learn about ELL population trends and recent demographic changes. Education, like real estate, is local. If you're a high school science teacher in Nebraska with five intermediate ELLs in your Biology 1 class, the situation in California may not seem particularly relevant to you. Still, learning about trends in other states or even in other parts of your own state will help you make sense of what's happening—or going to happen—where you teach. You and your classroom can then be prepared!

The Problem with This Misconception

Let's unpack this misconception by taking an inventory of our own assumptions and (mis)understandings about ELLs. This will help you activate any prior knowledge you may have. Using simple anticipation guides like this one is an easy way to prepare your own students before a lesson or a unit of study. The following quiz might help you discover some misconceptions of your own after learning the correct answers:

• A limited English proficient (LEP) student is the same as an English language learner (ELL). True or False?
• The majority of K–12 ELLs were born in the United States. True or False?
• Approximately what percentage of all K–12 students in the United States are ELLs?
  • □ 10
  • □ 15
  • □ 5
  • □ 20
• For approximately what percentage of ELLs nationwide is Spanish the home language?
  • □ 50
  • □ 95
  • □ 75
  • □ 85
• Which state has the largest percentage of students enrolled as ELLs?
  • □ North Carolina
  • □ Texas
  • □ Florida
  • □ California
• The percentage of ELLs is highest in the middle grades. True or False?
• By how much did the population of ELLs as a proportion of the total K–12 school population in the United States increase from 2000 to 2015?
  • □ 15.9 percent
  • □ 10.1 percent
  • □ 5.5 percent
  • □ 1.4 percent
• Which state has experienced the largest percentage increase in ELLs in the past 10 years?
  • □ Kansas
  • □ California
  • □ Arizona
  • □ Texas
• Students born in the United States are exempt from taking an English language proficiency test. True or False?
• Every state has a different English language proficiency test. True or False?

The Reasons Behind the Correct Answers

Learning about the reasons behind the correct answers to anticipation guide questions is a good way to wrap up learning at the end of any unit or lesson. We'll do the same thing with the questions you've just answered.

A Limited English Proficient (LEP) Student Is the Same as an English Language Learner (ELL).

True. The federal government still uses LEP, but the acronym isn't as common as it used to be—mainly because it describes students in negative terms. Another descriptor you may encounter is FLEP (former limited English proficient). This term describes students who are proficient and no longer LEP. LEP and FLEP are adjectives describing a particular kind of student; ELL and EL (English learner) refer to the student. (I prefer using ELL and will do so throughout this book.) Other acronyms describing what is taught to ELLs are ESL (English as a second language); ESOL (English for speakers of other languages); and even ENL (English as a new language), which is used in the state of New York. ESOL commonly appears in K–12 settings and is a more accurate term for multilingual students. For example, in my corner of Michigan, many children speak both Arabic and Chaldean in the home. That being the case, English is not simply the second language of these children—it's the third language they're learning. You'll notice "ESL" is used more often in adult education settings and the like (which may be a way to distinguish it from English as a foreign language [EFL: what adult students may have learned in their home countries]). When teaching in Japan, I taught EFL to my students because it was outside an English-speaking country. When teaching Japanese students in the United States, I taught English as a second language (ESL). The only thing that changed was the setting in which I taught English.

The Majority of K–12 ELLs Were Born in the United States.

True. This is a common misconception about ELLs. The percentage of foreign-born ELLs is higher at the secondary level (38 percent) than it is at the elementary level (15 percent). These small percentages of foreign-born ELLs show that the overwhelming majority of all ELLs were born in the United States (Zong & Batalova, 2015).

Approximately What Percentage of All K–12 Students in the United States Are ELLs?

10. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2018d), 9.5 percent of U.S. public school students were ELLs in fall 2015, and the percentage was trending upward. Education is so local, however, that we tend to forget the big national picture. Also, the overall average masks the big differences in various parts of the United States. ELLs aren't spread evenly throughout the United States; statistics show that 60 percent of the ELLs in K–12 schools are in the five states with the highest ELL populations: California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois (Office of English Language Acquisition, 2018).

For Approximately What Percentage of ELLs Nationwide is Spanish the Home Language?

75. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2018d), 3.7 million ELLs, or 77 percent of the total ELL population, speak Spanish. The next most common languages are Arabic, Chinese, and Vietnamese—spoken by 109,000, 104,000, and 85,300 students, respectively. The ELL population is linguistically diverse; at least 350 languages are spoken in U.S. homes (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015). My own teaching situation is a good example of this diversity. While a majority of ELLs at my school come from homes where Arabic is spoken, the other ELLs speak 27 different home languages. Many other settings are similar. When people learn that I teach ELLs, they often make two assumptions: (1) I'm bilingual and (2) I speak Spanish. Neither is correct. It's often true that ELL teachers speak one of the native languages of their students—and in many cases this is Spanish—but don't assume it's always so. Also, commonly spoken languages in your school district can change. My school district in Michigan has had a majority of Arabic-speaking ELLs for quite some time, but the second most common home language changed from Albanian to Bengali during the years I taught there. The bilingual Polish-speaking ELL teacher who had been hired 25 years earlier, when the community had more Polish-speaking residents, had very few Polish-speaking ELLs in her classes by the end of her career in the district. She then relied less on her bilingual Polish skills to provide native language support and more on her training in how to teach ELLs.

Which State Has the Largest Percentage of Students Enrolled as ELLs?

California. California is home to one-third of our nation's ELLs, according to the most recent statistics, and it has both the largest absolute number of ELLs (more than 1.3 million) and the highest percentage of ELLs (21 percent) compared to total enrollment (NCES, 2018c).

The Percentage of ELLs Is Highest in the Middle Grades.

False. The percentage of ELLs in each grade decreases steadily throughout the grades. The highest percentage is in kindergarten, nearly four times greater than the percentage in grade 12 (NCES, 2018d). This finding could have two causes. First, since most ELLs are born in the United States, they naturally show up in the greatest numbers in kindergarten, when they begin school. If everything goes well, they will reach proficiency by the time they enter middle school and will no longer be counted as ELLs. Second, immigrant children tend to be young. Over half of foreign-born children in the United States are elementary school age (The Urban Institute, 2019).

By How Much Did the Population of ELLs as a Proportion of the Total K–12 School Population in the United States Increase from 2000 to 2015?

1.4 percentage points. Although the percentage of ELLs as a proportion of the total school population nationally didn't increase dramatically over 15 years, 19 states doubled their percentages of ELLs as a proportion of their total school populations (NCES, 2018c). The foreign-born population of the United States is increasing, so this is one cause (Batalova & Alperin, 2018). Also, the percentage of ELLs may be increasing as a result of better identification or because students are remaining ELLs longer. If the number of ELLs in your district is increasing, it's important to figure out why. Are more newcomers enrolling, or are your ELLs remaining ELLs and not being reclassified? You'll learn how to respond to each of these situations later in this book.

Which State Has Experienced the Greatest Percentage Increase in ELLs in the Past 10 Years?

Kansas. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2018c), Kansas was the state with the greatest increase in ELLs over the past 10 years. ELLs as a percentage of the total school population more than doubled, from 5.2 percent in 2005 to 10.6 percent in 2015. A relatively sudden increase of ELLs in schools with little previous experience in educating them puts the need for professional development into sharp focus. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Teachers in school districts with a long history of having ELLs may be confident they're meeting the needs of their ELLs simply because they have experience in teaching them. This may be a false sense of confidence, however, if it's not supported by adequate progress of their ELLs. In contrast, teachers in schools with a sudden increase in ELLs may be more likely to realize what they don't know and thus see the need for professional development. For example, the tiny school district in rural northwestern Kansas I attended as a child historically had 0 percent ELLs. It then experienced an increase in its ELL population to 30 percent by 2017. I had a chance to discuss these changes with a former classmate, a teacher in this district, at a high school reunion. As I listened to her talk about the professional development she and her colleagues were getting in response to this change, I couldn't help noticing how she saw this change as a positive opportunity, not a negative challenge. She correctly realized that new ELLs moving into the district could keep the school in her rural community from closing due to low enrollment. It's important to keep track of similar trends in ELL numbers in your district, so that resources can be allocated where they're most needed.

Students Born in the United States Are Exempt from Taking an English Language Proficiency Test.

False. According to the U.S. Department of Education (2016), "[a limited English proficient] student, or English language learner (ELL), is defined as an individual

• who was not born in the United States, or
• whose native language is a language other than English, or
• who comes from an environment where a language other than English is dominant, or
• who is an American Indian or Alaska Native and who comes from an environment where a language other than English has had a significant impact on his or her level of English language proficiency" (p. 43).

As you can see from this definition, being born outside the United States is just one of several ways a student may qualify as an ELL. Students are screened for English language proficiency depending on how their parents answer the questions on a home language survey when they register their children for school. The U.S. Department of Education (2017) suggests the following three questions as "minimally compliant under the law" (p. 4):

• What is the primary language used in the home, regardless of the language spoken by the student?
• What is the language most often spoken by the student?
• What is the language that the student first acquired?

If a parent answers one or more of these questions with a language other than English, the child is then screened for English proficiency. This is often not stated on the form, so parents may not realize the consequences of their answers. If parents do understand what comes next, they may answer home language survey questions with "English" to avoid additional testing or to keep their children out of ESL or bilingual classes they feel will hold back their progress. This first concern is a valid one. If a child's performance on the English language proficiency screener determines he is an ELL, the child will be tested annually until reaching proficiency. Parents can't opt their children out of this testing. Parents can, however, opt their children out of ESL or bilingual services if they fear such services or classes will hamper their children's progress.

In spite of this guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, home language survey questions can vary greatly from state to state and district to district (Education Commission of the States, 2014b). For example, following are the home language survey questions from a school district in Michigan:

• Is your child's native tongue a language other than English? If yes, what language?
• Is the primary language used in your child's home or environment a language other than English?

Another example comes from a school district in Florida:

• Is a language other than English used in the home?
• Does the student have a first language other than English?
• Does t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Just Who Is an English Language Learner?
• 2. Supporting Home Language Maintenance
• 3. Promoting Family Engagement
• 4. You Can Teach Newcomers—Foundational Principles for Instruction
• 5. You Can Teach Newcomers—Ideas for Instruction Across the Content Areas
• 6. ELLs Hiding in Plain Sight
• 7. Acknowledging Knowledge
• 8. Meeting Realistic Yet Rigorous Standards
• 9. High Expectations Versus Hurried Expectations
• 10. When ELLs Struggle: Special Teaching or Special Education?
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Study Guide
• Related ASCD Resources
• About the Author
• Copyright