English Language Learners: Learning beyond Professional Development (Part 3)

In my English Learner/Bilingual Methods independent study course I wanted to experience different types of learning experiences.  An Illinois Writing Project in-service day offered two sessions on EL strategies for writing, one in K-5 and the other in 6-12.  This was my first introduction to practical strategies to use with students in the classroom.  During another Writing Project event seven weeks later, I had the opportunity to revisit EL professional learning with the same presenter.  Although some of the content overlapped, the professional development presenter, Melissa*, adapted the strategies and activities to the grade levels during the in-service day and expanded the discussion of standards and assessment during the later session.

Melissa began our in-service sessions with Six-Word Memoirs.  As we tried to introduce ourselves with so few words, we were called upon to succinctly capture the essence of who we are and what we love.  In the morning I wrote this memoir: Wiser for learning words, children, faith.  In the afternoon, I tried my hand at gerunds to describe me: Reading, loving, learning, sharing, teaching, creating.  Other people wrote about children and outside interests, but I do not seem to be that creative.  NPR has a series on Six-Word Memoirs, but teachers must be careful when sharing random selections with students because of possible adult content.  Writing these memoirs shows that words have power in and of themselves without being connected to one another in sentences or paragraphs.  Melissa continued by saying that this activity could be modified with photos, word cards, and sentence frames, which are all appropriate modifications for language learners.

Importantly, teachers must consider two objectives with every lesson: language and content.  To meet these objectives, Melissa urges her district teachers to plan for reading, writing, speaking, and listening in every class.  In our PD sessions, we considered these questions:

How do writing-to-learn and academic conversations shape learning?
What compels me to read and write?
How can we support EL students?

Finding out English language proficiency levels are of primary importance.  English learner development is measured in six levels:

1. Newcomer
2. Emerging—knows and understands phrases
3. Developing—conversational understanding with lots of fillers
4. Expanding—academic language and knowledge of idioms developing
5. Bridging—students may exit the program but still need supports, especially with writing
6. Reaching—fluency

In the morning in-service session, I was first introduced to the language assessments created by WIDA that provide scores for English learners to indicate proficiency levels.  In Illinois, students may be exited from the EL program if they score a composite of 5.0 in writing and 4.2 in reading and math, which are both still at the expanding and bridging levels.  It is important to know what students’ current levels are in order to understand what supports they might need.  The WIDA website provides detailed information including Can Do Statements, helpful for determining the appropriate expectations teacher should have for students at different levels of proficiency.

Melissa cited John Hattie's meta-analysis intended to illuminate the most effective classroom strategies.  The following strategies were noted to have the largest effect sizes and can be adapted to benefit English language learners:

1. Clarity is intentional and purposeful. Teachers know the objectives for language and content and can articulately communicate those objectives to the students.  Teachers must ask, “Do students know what they need to do?”
2.  Lessons include guided, collaborative, and independent tasks.
3.  Tasks are meaningful and engaging.
4. Students can explain the purpose of the lesson and the tasks they are asked to do.
5. Teachers are authentic models.  In language arts and other classrooms, this means that teachers write.
6. Students apply strategies explicitly taught to them.

Melissa also led us in Jeff Anderson’s Power Writing activity, which is a timed writing based on words or images and sets a baseline for writing fluency and endurance.  Power writing is typically completed three times for a minute or two each time.  What is interesting is that often the second timed writing has the largest word count.  For this activity, Melissa used two unrelated pictures, but this activity could use pairs of words or phrases.  When we completed two timed writings on our picture choice, I noticed that the first image related to a memory, so I was immediately able to write.  This prompted me to consider that pictures could be content or academic related or culture related or family, etc depending on the purpose for the classroom writing activity.  These timed writings could also be included in the writer’s notebook and used for seeds for future writing opportunities (see Buckner, 2005 for more writer's notebook ideas).  Capturing writing in this way would allow students opportunities to return to their ideas and expand them.  One strategy would be to use short, timed writings at the beginning of a unit and then at the end of a unit to compare the quantity and/or quality of the writing or words.

But no matter how much knowledge and training teachers have, classrooms pose daily challenges and learning opportunities.  In last week's PD event, Melissa shared that she and a 7th grade language arts teacher have been conducting a study to document the supports students need at different proficiency levels.  For the most recent writing assignment, students were to use a folktale model and write their own "fractured" fairytale/folktale story.  However, she and the language arts teacher recognized late in the unit that they had left out some essential scaffolding.  The English learner students did not have a solid understanding of narrative structure, a cornerstone of successfully completing the writing assignment.  For example, one student had worked diligently on his piece for two weeks, but when he shared with the class, his onomatopoeias, simple sentences, and fragments lacked the essential narrative storytelling quality.  The bigger insight she shared with us that evening was that the safe classroom environment allowed this student to share his work without fear of judgment.  This student knew his writing would be received positively, and he would gain constructive feedback from his peers.

Feeling safe.  Some weeks ago, I attended an informational program about the refugee experience.  Later I learned from Melissa that if a school has twenty or more students who speak the same language, districts must provide a devoted EL teacher resource for them.  With the influx of immigrants, particularly refugees, in different areas around Chicago and the suburbs, this mandate has put a strain on several schools working to stay in compliance with the state.  And for some immigrants there may not be a choice of where or when, which is what I learned during a "walk-in-a-refugee's-shoes" activity during the refugee experience program.  As my semester progressed, my coursework was complicating my thinking in unexpected ways about what it meant to teach in diverse classrooms.  My next step would be to visit some.

Suggested resources:
Maria Nichols (2006) Comprehension through Conversation can be a cornerstone for early to mid elementary instruction.
Peter Johnston (2004) encourages teachers to speak to students in the language of literacy.  If we call students writers then they will become writers.
Stephanie Harvey and Ann Gouva’s Reading the World video series can be helpful for exploring culture; however, Amazon only lists the VHS version.
Zwiers and Crawford (2011) Academic Conversations.

*All names are pseudonyms.

A Teacher's (Re)certification Journey: English Learner Standards, Common Core, and Resources (Part 2)

The new Common Core State Standards for English language arts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010) ushered in new perspectives on literacy in the classroom.  I embraced these standards when I designed a literacy workshop that supplemented the language arts curriculum.  With additional time, students could experience books through small group discussions and projects and essential questions around relevant middle school ideas such as the First Amendment.  Yet, students needed to experience literacy throughout their school day instead of in designated writing classes.  I commented on this concern in my dissertation:
  

The Common Core State Standards Initiative (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010), approved in forty-three states, addresses the implementation of literacy standards in all content areas.  Applebee and Langer (2009) wrote extensively of the state of writing instruction and cautioned that the long avoidance of writing in the content areas pre-twentieth century would make it difficult for educators to re-incorporate writing in the curriculum.  Nearly ten years later, writing accountability creates an urgency barely noticeable before, even though researchers have discussed the need for effective literacy strategy implementation for years. With the public reporting of achievement scores, schools vie in a competitive slap-down for prime spots at the top. (Vujaklija, 2016)

Expanding and increasing literacy in the content areas has become both a blessing and a curse.  Students are writing and reading more types of text than ever before.  Unfortunately, with so much pressure, content teachers hesitate to make modifications because CCSS standards require written text unlike many modifications for English learners that include visual supports.  These problems are real for EL teachers like Ms. Castle* who works to support her students both in the content-area classrooms and her level 1 and level 2 English classes.  She explained that recall ranks low on a Depth of Knowledge chart, but for an English language learner, recall ranks very high.  DOK and EL learning do not always equate, which complicates content-area learning for English learners.

Three pieces have come into play to address these challenges: WIDA consortium, TESOL Teacher Standards (revised in 2009), and TESOL Common Core resources for English learners.  These pieces form three sides of the EL triangle to include resources for students (and for teachers to meet students' needs), expectations for the EL teacher in response to cultural differences, and the supports EL teachers need in order to meet the demands of the Common Core. 

According to WIDA’s website: “Everything WIDA does revolves around the significance of academic language and how to empower language learners to reach for success.”  In fact, the WIDA website overwhelmed me with its resources on standards and instruction, assessment, professional learning, and research.  The same might very well be true for veteran teachers similarly overwhelmed with bridging new literacy standards to EL teacher standards, as well as best classroom practices for students.  During a professional development session I attended recently, one second grade teacher shared that her EL teacher collaborator did not access the WIDA resources and wondered why.  I would venture to say that although the resources are outstanding, when layered with the Common Core State Standards and the EL Teacher Standards, she may just be overwhelmed. 

The TESOL Teacher Standards identify culture as an integral component for English learners.  The document states: "Teachers of English language learners (ELLs) in the United States need to have knowledge of other cultures and know how culture may affect the acculturation of immigrants or children of immigrants in the United States. They also need to know how acculturation may be in conflict with typical U.S. educational patterns” (p. 6).  These teacher standards advocate for "constructivist pedagogy" (p. 10) with meaningful connections and considerations to students' home cultures.  Importantly, teachers must view students as having funds of knowledge as contributors to the classroom.  Resources such as this edition of The Magazine of the National Association for Bilingual Education offer inspiration and guidance.

The TESOL Common Core document stated that "ESL teachers can play a critical role in helping content teachers analyze the academic language demands of their content areas, design lessons that teach academic language and content simultaneously, and implement CCSS-based instruction for ELs” (p. 9).  The rigorous new demands for essential content-area as well as college and career-ready vocabulary places the ESL teacher’s vocabulary instruction training at a particular advantage to the content-area teacher.  Unfortunately, the document also included a personal reflection from one EL teacher who remarked that her co-teachers were surprised she was attending a Common Core training with them.  It is unnerving that anyone would be seen as not needed in a conversation about educational standards and the implementation of best instructional practices in and outside the classroom.  

The TESOL recommendations were typical of most professional development descriptions--CCSS training for ESL teachers needs to be practical and integrated with what is already being done within the classroom.  Without authenticity and a means for engaging teachers, professional development falls short of its intended goal to impact instructional practices.  The sessions I attended seemed primed for immediate classroom impact, which is the next step in this teacher's journey.

*All names are pseudonyms