Approaches to Inclusive English Classrooms

A Teacher's Handbook for Content-Based Instruction

Kate Mastruserio Reynolds

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783093359
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Inklusive Bildung

This book provides educators with an accessible guide to best practices concerning content-based instruction (CBI) models and their use in English learner inclusive classrooms. The author effectively bridges the gap between theory and practice with a critical analysis of practical examples and diverse strategies for the inclusion of English learners into K-12 general education courses. The book also raises controversial questions regarding who is qualified to teach English learners and who is responsible for doing so, looking at the difficulties faced by both general educators and ESL teachers in Inclusive Classrooms. By providing a lens through which both ESL teachers and general educators are able to analyze, compare and contrast a range of widely-employed CBI methods, this book allows teachers to make informed decisions in their EL program development and work with English learners in K-12 schools.

Section 1

Orientations to English Language Inclusion

In this section, educators will find a balanced analysis of the pros and cons of inclusive schooling of English learners. Readers will investigate the history of inclusive education, the rationale for why inclusive schooling is beneficial for English learners and their native English-speaking peers as well as a thoughtful description of the challenges of creating a productive inclusive environment for English learners. This section also includes a discussion of the role of language in teaching, introducing an alternative perspective on the importance of language in general education classes. Finally, this section introduces a framework of the knowledge, skills and dispositions (i.e. attitudes or orientations) that general educators need in order to be effective in English learner (EL) inclusion.

1Why Must I Do This? The Drawbacks, Benefits and Challenges with EL Inclusion and the Impetus for General Educator Preparation in EL Inclusion

Chapter Aims and Topics

Discuss the history and rationale for English learner (EL) inclusion and general educator preparation.

Describe EL inclusion.

Detail the benefits of EL inclusion.

Reveal the impact of changes to demographics and the educational landscape on teachers’ instruction and preparation.

Depict the current preparation of general educators to include ELs into their courses.

Deliberate the rationale for the inclusion of ELs into general education courses.

Highlight educators’ concerns regarding EL inclusion.

Delineate the challenges to teacher preparation for EL inclusion.

History and Rationale for General Educator Preparation in EL Inclusion

Efforts to provide children with the least restrictive learning environment have been labelled the ‘inclusion movement’ and are realised by including all learners into the general education classroom despite their unique needs (e.g. special needs or English language learner [ELL]). The inclusion movement is an outgrowth of the civil rights movement of social equity and desegregation, making all public school classrooms accessible to minority populations of individuals of colour, individuals with special needs (i.e. physical, emotional, behavioural and cognitive differences) and individuals from linguistically diverse home environments. Most people think of the 1960s as the peak of civil rights work and influential educational law suits, such as Lau vs. Nichols (1974) in the US, but such laws did not come into effect until the 1970s. A sea change occurred during that time to permanently alter the educational landscape and laws were implemented to address issues of equality based on race, gender, class and ablism (Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 1975; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1997; the Lau Remedies, 1975; the Equal Opportunities Act, 1974) (Platt et al., 2003). Advances in EL inclusion accompanied the inclusion movement of learners with special needs (Westby et al., 1994). According to Reeves (2006: 132), the inclusion movement and ‘universal access’ gained popular acceptance also due to the standards and accountability movements of the 1990s. Philosophically, then, equal access for all learners by providing the least restrictive academic environment possible became the norm.

The resulting open access differentiates the US public school policy, and several other Western countries’ school policy, from public schools in many other countries of the world. In many countries, such as Peru and Ukraine, students who do not speak the majority language are frequently excluded from educational opportunities or they must learn the language of instruction independently prior to accessing the educational system. Imagine if you and your family were sent to work in Peru, but your children were not allowed to attend school since they did not speak Spanish at all or not enough to participate actively in schooling.

Consider these statistics and consider how these laws in combination with changing American demographics have impacted the K-12 schools today. In 2004, 62.9% of all K-12 schools in the US had ELs (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2002). ‘In 2007, an estimated 11 million elementary and secondary students, or 21 percent of all such students, spoke a language other than English at home’ (Aud et al., 2010). For the 2007–2008 academic year, the number of children enrolled in K-12 increased by 8.5% overall while the number of ELs increased by 53% (National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition [NCELA], 2010). The trend of increased EL enrolments in schools has been sustained over the last two decades; likewise, projections have indicated that this trend will continue into the next several decades (Fry, 2008), changing the demographic ‘face’ of our public schools. The NCELA 2008–2009 data reported that approximately 5,346,673 ELs enrolled in grades pre-k to 12 in the US (NCELA, retrieved 18 June 2012).

The US has experienced dramatically increased enrolments of ELs in the last 20 years. Along with these increased enrolments, there has been a shift in the location and diversity of EL enrolments. No longer are ELs and their families living only on the coasts and in the south-west or Florida (NCELA, 2010). Ramirez (2007: 47) noted, ‘Most of them [ELs] are in border states in the Southwest, but the fastest growth recently has been in the Carolinas, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. They are seeking more opportunities (i.e., pull-factors, such as jobs, affordable housing, and community attitudes) and migrating into areas that have not seen much in the way of immigration for decades. Furthermore, in Fairfax County, Virginia, public “schools serve 21,000 students who speak more than 140 languages”’. When working with current populations of ELs, teachers must be mindful of the diversity of home languages and cultures. For example, many educators think that EL educators work with Spanish speakers from Mexico. In reality, ELs come from all over Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. There is even more complexity in these descriptions too. For example, the ‘Mexican’ child may have been born in the US and might not be highly proficient in Spanish or his/her native Quechan. It is important that teachers working with ELs have positive attitudes and dispositions about working with learners from the world over.

Various educational systems, teachers, aids, reading specialists and administrators are being asked to include more diverse learners in areas where the systems are new to these changes. In differing states, political debates continually make headlines over immigration policy or access to public schools based on residency status. With all these changes, educators are expected to stretch their skills and dispositions in new directions.

What does EL Inclusion Look Like?

There are several realisations of inclusive classrooms, including ‘full inclusion’ in which the language learner is present in the general education class for the entire day with or without the assistance of a trained general educator, English as a second language (ESL) educator or paraprofessional (Harper & de Jong, 2004; Turnbull et al., 1995). When the learner is placed in a general education class with no support either in the class from an ESL-trained general educator or ESL/bilingual support staff or from pull-out tutorials, the realisation is called ‘sink or swim’. ELs without any language clarity or language learning assistance will tune out, shut down and fail or they will seek to overcome the language barrier and thrive.

Imagine coming to a new country with your family. Everything is new, exciting and scary. You go to school and are placed in a classroom with children who do not speak your language. Your teacher cannot even communicate with you. In class, the teacher explains things, but you do not understand a word. You are given a paper to work on, but you cannot figure out what to do with it and you do not have the words or concepts to complete the assignment. What would you do in this environment day after day?

When an EL is fully included into the general education class with support for the majority of the day, it is considered full inclusion (aka push-in). In a general education class of this type, the general educator may be the sole teacher, might co-teach with an ESL teacher or have the support of an ESL teacher or bilingual education assistant. In the co-teaching situation, both the general educator and the ESL teacher might collaboratively plan with each one teaching a segment of the content or the ESL teacher might have no planning or instructional role other than support and clarification. Support in this instance might entail explaining the concept in easier language, defining, giving examples and teaching enabling concepts or skills, among other supports.

In a full inclusion environment, the roles of the content teacher and support personnel are adjustable. Imagine a scenario in which the content expert and the language expert have the opportunity to plan their lessons with each facilitating part of the lesson to all the learners. Now, compare that to the scenario of the content expert solely planning and delivering content information. And finally, compare those two scenarios to one in which the content expert plans and delivers the material without collaboration, but has the benefit of an ESL teacher or bilingual aide to help explain, clarify and/or elaborate for the ELs during the lesson.

Another realisation is ‘partial inclusion’ in which the learner is placed into the general education class for part of the day and withdrawn during a class or two. Learners can be pulled out for one-on-one work with an ESL teacher or for an ESL-specific lesson with a small group. During these individual pull-out sessions, ELs are supposed to be taught language and subject matter concepts. However, one-on-one sessions often turn into tutoring, because the learner(s) are behind in their academic work. In individual pull-out sessions, ESL teachers try to provide the concepts and skills that the learners need in order to be successful when they return to the general education class. For example, the learner might be learning how to write simple declarative sentences in the present tense or to read and understand a history textbook description by identifying key adjectives and using word attack strategies to figure out the new words.

When there are several or many ELs who are at the same grade level and who need similar second language concepts, they are often removed from the general education class and grouped together for formal instruction. Thi...