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MLs are an especially diverse population of learners. Some MLs come from settings where former schooling is nonexistent. Other MLs come from school systems that outperform U.S. schools. As newcomers to the U.S., learners from every background need foundational English and content skills to master content goals as well as comprehend the language used in school.

Classroom Example: Karen and Henri are newcomers. In their home countries, Karen was educated in an academically challenging school whereas Henri did not have access to formal schooling. A large academic gap between them was shown by a native language math and language arts basic skill test they completed on arrival. Their teacher realizes that Henri will need additional basic skills math and language arts instruction in addition to the newcomer ESL class that both students attend.

Language skills
To understand ideas and content in English, MLs need to learn the systems of the English language by mastering the following:

• Letters and their corresponding sounds (especially when different from native language);
• Punctuation, capitalization, and spelling;
• Word meanings, affixes, and morphemes; and
• Structures of phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and conversations.

While students may acquire some of these skills on their own, they also need to receive systematic, consistent instruction related to these areas. Teachers should, “Provide small group instruction that focuses on the five core reading elements (phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension)” (U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences [IES], 2007, p. 15). The more fluency MLs have in these areas, the better equipped they are to learn in English. As students become more fluent, their growth should be tracked to determine if more intervention is needed to help gain language proficiency (IES, 2007).

Foundational Content Skills
Students with a limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFEs) are students who are “over aged and under educated” compared with their U.S. peers.

Although SLIFEs often have extensive knowledge in areas related to life in their home country, they lack home language literacy skills and grade level content knowledge. These students must gain beginning literacy skills, print awareness, and background concepts that are the foundations for content learning. The unique needs of SLIFEs are often addressed through supplemental instruction that takes place in:

• Newcomer classes,
• Extended day/year programs,
• Differentiated center work, and
• Small group instruction.

(Short & Boyson, 2012)

Technology Skills

Students are expected to learn in classrooms and complete assignments that are embedded with technology. MLs must have the skills they need to access the technology platforms used in school. It is the responsibility of teachers to ensure that students have the abilities needed to use devices at school as well as access to necessary technologies outside school.

Classroom Application Questions:

• What skills, not mentioned above, might you need if you were learning academic content in a new language?
• At what levels have MLs in your classes acquired the three skill categories (language, foundational content, and technology)?
• Of the three categories in this section, which one is the hardest for you to develop? Why?

MLs need time to discuss the content of the learning objectives in a lesson. They generally gain oral language skills first then transfer those skills to reading and writing. Therefore, academic dialogue is crucial for students as they learn English.

Classroom Example: Jamie and Susana, who are at the developing and bridging levels (P3 and P5*), are discussing reasons the United States entered the Vietnam War. The prompt is: “Take the perspective of news reporters creating a nightly news program, and discuss the most compelling reason for/against entering the war.” First, the teacher demonstrates how to keep a discussion focused on the prompt. Then, referencing a word wall with key terms and related pictures, Jamie and Susana take turns constructing an argument. They state their position, explain why they chose their position, use facts from the article used in class, and determine areas of agreement/disagreement.

To become an expert in a subject, background knowledge is essential. Existing background knowledge is rendered useless, however, if language or culture makes it impossible to link background knowledge to a task. For example, a seasoned astrophysicist would have difficulty passing a fourth grade math exam if it was in an incomprehensible language or if it used unfamiliar math symbols. Every learner sees the world through a lens of what he or she already knows. It is important for teachers to understand students’ backgrounds in order to assist students in activating existing background knowledge and building the new background knowledge needed to meet lesson objectives.

Classroom Example: When teaching a lesson on dividing decimals, Ms. Capuano helps Javier (an emerging/P2* student) connect what he learned in Argentina to her lesson. After researching math education in Argentina, she provides him:

• Translations of the key terms (e.g. decimal point – coma de los decimals);
• an explanation that periods are used to represent decimal points in the U.S. instead of commas, like in Argentina ; and
• division problems set up in an alternate, Latin American format alongside the U.S. format.

Leveraging Academic Competencies
MLs come to class with their own level of academic achievement. It is important to help them see how their background competencies can be used to learn in their current academic environment. Educators need to relate new material to MLs’ school experiences from their native countries.

Leveraging Native Language
Language and thinking are closely linked. As MLs learn English, it is important for them to make connections to their native language. If they are allowed to develop their native language in concert with English, they will be able to better transfer their prior knowledge. Bilingual labels, texts, supports, and teaching have the potential to provide greater long-term gains for MLs than an English-only environment (Umansky & Reardon, 2014). Identification of similar or identical words across languages, known as cognates (e.g. decimal – los decimals in the example), also can support MLs’ learning.

Integrating Prior Experiences
As students transition between cultures, they bring with them unique experiences. Educators must plan to integrate MLs’ skills and interests into lessons to motivate them to learn new content. As MLs are able to use their skills and interests, their confidence grows.

Academic Vocabulary
Key content vocabulary needs to be systematically highlighted for students. MLs need to be able to define terms and use them in academic settings. To help MLs acquire academic vocabulary, teachers should relate new terms to MLs’ background knowledge (Marzano & Pickering, 2005). As learners grow more familiar with this process, they should be challenged to independently decipher new vocabulary by using context clues, word parts, glossaries, dictionaries, etc.

Classroom Application Questions:

• How can you cultivate students’ abilities to transfer academic knowledge from their native language(s) and previous school background(s)?
• What resources are available for incorporating native language(s) into your students’ learning experience?
• What can you do in your school to plan opportunities for students to learn and practice key academic vocabulary?

Learning to utilize available resources is an important skill in any college or career context. MLs must learn to use provided resources (i.e. scaffolds and strategies) to access content and be taught how to leverage their own resources to complete school-related tasks.

Scaffolding
“In order to develop the ability to read complex texts and engage in academic conversations, ELs (an alternate term for MLs) need access to such texts and conversations, along with support in engaging with them” (Bunch, Kibler, & Pimentel, 2012, p. 3). Students need to use complex language, but to do so they need scaffolds and supports. As MLs transition through the proficiency levels of English, the scaffolds to which they have access should gradually diminish; they also should become more independent as they apply scaffolds to their work (Gottlieb, 2013).

As seen in the graph on this page, fewer scaffolds are needed to access academic content as MLs grow in their proficiency (shown as “P”).

There are three categories of scaffolds:

• Sensory support: e.g. real objects, manipulatives, pictures, drawings, physical activities, and videos;
• Graphic support: e.g. charts, graphic organizers, tables, graphs, timelines, and number lines; and
• Interactive support: e.g. pairs, small groups, cooperative work, technology, and native language

(Gottlieb, 2013)

Strategies
Strategies are learned systems of processing information that are taught to students. Unlike scaffolds, strategies do not need to be provided by a teacher for each individual activity. Students internalize them and apply them in appropriate situations.

Some examples are:

• Repeated readings, underlining, and mental imagery;
• locating cognates, transition words and repeated words that may expose key ideas/meanings; and
• using learned structures like graphic organizers and mnemonics to organize, express, and revise.

(Echevarria et al., 2008).

Classroom application questions:

• Which example scaffolds from each of the three categories of support are most suited for the content area(s) you teach?
• What strategies would you teach students unaccustomed to the features of U.S. textbooks?
• How would you describe the difference between strategies and scaffolds to a colleague?

Assessments for students of all language proficiencies should be based on rigorous, standards-based lesson objectives. The language demands of assessments, however, should be individualized to students’ language proficiency levels.

Classroom Example: Mr. Williams has MLs who are at entering (P1) through developing (P3) levels of proficiency. For his end-of-unit math exam he quickly individualizes the test for these students. For beginners, he represents the word problems using simple hand drawn pictures/symbols, provides sentence frames for students’ explanations, has a bilingual instructional assistant translate when necessary, and modifies questions that have language that is too complex. Intermediate students receive a test with key terms underlined, a math picture dictionary, and a cause/effect graphic organizer for their explanations. All MLs receive extra time to process the language in the test.

Formative Assessment
Students need ongoing monitoring during each class to determine if they will be able to accomplish lesson objectives. These ongoing assessments must be individualized for students according to their English proficiency. Questioning, observations, practice, visual representations, discussions, and activities are all examples of formative assessments that can measure individual student growth.

Summative Assessment
At the end of a thematic unit, chapter, or term, students often are given summative assessments. Some summative assessments are mandated by an educational agency. However, when teachers have control over summative assessments they should make sure they are tailored to the language capabilities of students (Echevarria et al., 2008).

Individualizing the Language of Assessments
When individualizing assessments according to students’ proficiency levels:

• Hold students accountable for the content and language they have been taught;
• find ways to make assessments authentic and related to MLs’ background knowledge;
• adjust question wait time, structure (e.g. change open-ended questions to multiple choice), and language complexity;
• add features like word banks, simplified language, pictures, graphs, checklists, and glossaries to tests;
• give all students assessments that look somewhat similar so that MLs don’t feel singled out; and
• offer alternative ways to answer questions (e.g. graphic organizers, sentence frames, and drawings).

When individualizing assessments do not:

• Use “baby talk” when asking a question (e.g. making references to oneself/student in the third person);
• talk more loudly to lower-proficiency students;
• surprise students in front of the class with a question that has hard-to-process language;
• water down content demands;
• expect students to speak and write using conventions they have not yet learned; or
• single out MLs as being different because of their differentiated assessments.

Classroom Application Questions:

• How are you currently individualizing assessments for MLs?
• What can you do to minimize preparation time when individualizing student assessments?
• Which of your assessment practices could be adjusted to achieve better individualization?

Culture must be “woven” through each of the other threads of the FABRIC paradigm. Culture informs the way all people see the world around them, including education. Students, teachers, and parents interpret each other’s actions through its lens. In order to avoid misunderstanding, it is important for teachers to learn how the behaviors exhibited by MLs and their families are influenced by culture. With this in mind, students must be taught to develop the cultural understandings and skills needed to communicate accurately and appropriately in U.S. schools.

Classroom Example: Ms. Armenta decided to hold a classroom debate in her high school class. Through research, she found out that some Asian cultures discourage expressing personal feelings and opinions in a group and that open discussion is not a customary practice in classrooms. While students were in centers, Ms. Armenta pulled her Asian MLs aside and showed them a movie clip of a classroom debate. She then let the students practice debating their side of the argument in pairs before they had to debate in a whole group setting.

Cultivating Cross-Cultural Understanding
Cross-cultural understanding is based on having knowledge of one’s own culture and appreciation of other cultures. School personnel should learn about the values of their students and their students’ families, as well as become sensitive to the challenges they face in adapting to a new culture. Stakeholders in the school and community should be lifelong learners seeking to grapple with the motivations behind what they perceive in others (Gottlieb, 2013).

Culturally Responsive Environments
Cultural adjustment can be a difficult process, and MLs often find themselves disoriented as they try to fit into their new environments. Students, staff, and community members need to find ways to demonstrate they appreciate and understand MLs and their cultures. Support can be shown through empathy for their experiences, activities that integrate their cultural backgrounds, and awareness of cultural traditions. A sense of belonging may take students years to develop, so teachers need to be understanding while they hold MLs to rigorous, ability-level appropriate standards.

Examples of areas that vary across cultures include:

• Body language
• Ratios of student talk to teacher talk in class
• Classroom rules, discipline, and wait time
• Roles of parents in schools and education
• Views of time and lateness
• Context-appropriate dress
• Views of gender, class, and race
• Expectations for homework completion
• Intellectual property and plagiarism
• Cultural connotations of certain vocabulary words

Classroom Application Questions:

• Where do you see areas of cultural responsiveness to native cultures in your school?
• How can you enhance the areas of responsiveness using the concepts from this text?
• What steps could you take to encourage students who are experiencing difficulty as a result of adjustment to a new culture?

Bunch, G. C., Kibler, A. K., & Pimentel, S. (2012). Realizing opportunities for English learners in the common core English language arts and disciplinary literacy standards. Paper presented at the Understanding Language Conference, Stanford, CA.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D. (2008). Making content comprehensible for English learners: the SIOP model (3rd ed.). Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon.

Gottlieb, M. (2013). Essential actions: a handbook for implementing WIDA’s framework for English language development standards. Madison, WI: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2005). Building academic vocabulary: teacher's manual. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Short, D., & Boyson, B. A. (2012). Helping newcomer students succeed in secondary schools and beyond a report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Spada, N. (2013). How languages are learned (4. ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. (2007). Effective literacy and English language instruction for English learners in the elementary grades. 

Umansky, I. M., & Reardon, S. F. (2014). Reclassification patterns among Latino English learner students in bilingual, dual immersion, and English immersion classrooms. Stanford, CA: Center for Educational Policy Analysis.

Zwiers, J., O’Hara, S., & Pritchard, R. (2014). Common core standards in diverse classrooms: essential practices for developing academic language and disciplinary literacy. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.