User:Naro13/English-language learner

The term "some" is commonly used throughout the article. This makes the credibility questionable and the reader does not know who "some" is. Who are the "some" educational advocates? "Some" researchers

Potential issues faced by ELLs[edit]

Assessment biases

The Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA passed in 2015 replaced No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), also requires all ELLs attending public schools from grades K–12 to be assessed in multiple language domains, such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking. Current research in this area has found that assessments given to ELLs are culturally and linguistically inappropriate for reliable testing. Assessments do not take into account the students' linguistic repertoire and what they know in their first language; therefore, content-based assessment outcomes might be confounded by language barriers, since they are not only being exposed to new material, but they are learning this new material in a language that they may still be gaining proficiency in. Student feedback has stated that they have a difficult time associating the content presented to them with their personal lives. Aside from the students' linguistic repertoire not being taken into account in assessments, research has shown that they also do not consider the experiences that students have gone through. Bias can also be integrated easily thus resulting in lower test scores. Lack of variety in assessments contributes to limitations that are placed on students. This hinders the expression of diversity of the students and restricts the ability for teachers to accurately determine the academic progress of a student.

Culture[edit]

A study to examine anti-racist pedagogy within predominantly white versus predominantly Mexican classrooms concluded that Mexican elementary-level students had a firmer grasp on cultural inequalities. According to the findings, the social and cultural maturity of the Mexican students is a direct result of having faced the inequalities themselves. Another study^{[citation needed]} on Caucasian first-grade teachers and their ELL students indicated biases that ultimately affected students' desire to learn. A combination of misinformation, stereotypes, and individual reservations can alter teachers' perception when working with culturally diverse or non-native English speakers. Teachers are placed in the position to teach English-learning students, sometimes without the necessary training, as mentioned above. From a Walden University study, a handful of teachers at an elementary school expressed not having the energy, training, or time to perform for these students.

An ESL teacher, in a study called "Losing Strangeness to Mediate ESL Teaching", "connects culture to religious celebrations and holidays and the fusion invites students to share their knowledge". This has encouraged students to open up and talk about their cultural backgrounds and traditions. "Teachers who encourage CLD students to maintain their cultural or ethnic ties promote their personal and academic success." Students should not feel that they need to lose their identity in the classroom, but rather that they gain knowledge from both their culture and the world around them. It have been proven to be beneficial to bring culture into the ESL classroom for the students to feel a sense of worth in school and in their lives. Similarly, the sharing one different cultural backgrounds can benefit other students in the mainstream classroom who may not have the cultural maturity or dual identities that these students are able to shed a light on.

Another reason that an ESL student may be struggling to join discussions and engage in class could be attributed to whether they come from a culture where speaking up to an authority figure (like a teacher or a professor) is discouraged. This makes classes that are graded based on participation especially challenging for these students. Strategies that can mitigate this discomfort or misunderstanding of expectations include offering surveys or reflective writing prompts, that are collected after class, inquiring about student's educational and cultural backgrounds and past learning experiences. Regardless of how much training an instructor has on teaching ELL students, being open to learning about them as an individual rather than a part of a larger group and making efforts towards tailoring and personalizing their learning experience can contribute to the student's overall success.

Outside of the classroom, ELL students are otherwise institutionally marginalized, as well. They often sit at separate lunch tables and are under-recognized in school assemblies.

Prompts and expectations[edit]

Aside from linguistic gaps, the adjustment to American scholarly expectations, writing genres, and prompts can all be jarring and even contradictory to an ELL individual's academic experiences from their home country. An example of this is how American writing prompts tend to be multiple pages long, with extensive details and examples. Many collegiate ELLs can be overwhelmed and confused by all of the additional information, making it difficult to decipher all of the different parts that their writing needs to address. Another example is found in how students from other countries may be unfamiliar with sharing their opinions, or criticizing the government in any form, even if this is a requirement for an essay or a speech. According to a survey by Lin (2015), "Many [ELL students] indicated that they had problems adjusting their ways of writing in their first language to American thought patterns. Students still thought in their first language and used the rhetorical patterns of their first language to write English essays… Because writing patterns or styles are not only cognitively but also culturally embedded, many ELL writers in this study found it takes a significant amount of time to adapt to different thinking patterns when communicating through written English."

Much use of native language[edit]

Most ELLs find themselves using their native language most of the time rather than practicing their newly language and this drags back the progress they had made earlier on. When using the acquired second language, many ELLs enter a stage called "the silent period." During this period the ELL is familiar with the language but does not use it. This period of not speaking can last 6 weeks or more depending on the person.

Once the ELL begins to use the second language they use brief phrases and short words. With time, the individual may begin to feel more comfortable with using the language. The length of duration for an ELL to become fluent in the second language depends on the individual themselves and their strength in their native language.

ELLs with disabilities[edit]

Of the 5 million ELL students in the 2019–2020 school year, 15.3% of these or 766,600 were identified with disabilities and qualified for special education services. ELLs with disabilities follow the same path to receiving services for special education: academic struggle is observed by those working with the student, the student is referred to a team of professionals for intervention and/or assessment, if a disability is found they are then placed in special education programming for support.

Researchers have found that there is a disproportion in ELL students identified into special education. There can be an overrepresentation where ELL students can be qualified into special education services but do not truly have a disability, or there can be an underrepresentation where a disability exists but the ELL student is not qualified into special education because it is deemed a language development related issue. When determining the reasoning behind academic difficulties, areas such as standardized tests, observation and parent involvement have been considered to determine the struggle of the student. Although assessments in schools are the common, the reliability of this in terms of language proficiency and learning disability can be questionable considering their limitations.

Most ELL students qualify under the specific learning disability or speech or language impairment categories. According to WIDA, states with the highest identification of ELLs with disabilities, the specific learning disability category is the highest category for special education qualification. (See the "WIDA Focus On: ELLs with Specific Learning Disabilities" fact sheet] for a detailed map breakdown by state on percentages of ELLs identified into this category.)

Although a language barrier is present, when classifying the disability or impairment intrinsic and extrinsic factors considered are:

• Environment
• The child as a whole
• Students' strengths during meaningful activities
• Student progression in relation to their peers

References

Dr. Yusra Jadallah Abed Khasawneh, and Dr. Mohamad Ahmad Saleem Khasawneh. “Achieving Assessment Equity and Fairness: Identifying and Eliminating Bias in Assessment Tools and Practices”. Kurdish Studies, vol. 11, no. 2, Dec. 2023, pp. 4469-78, https://kurdishstudies.net/menu-script/index.php/KS/article/view/1035.