English Language Learners
The number of students who speak English as their second language continues to increase in the United States, especially in Arizona, Texas, California, New York, and Florida (Cho & Larke 1). It is common in elementary classrooms for these students to communicate with other students in the class who are bilingual in order to learn the lessons that are being taught. This type of communication and learning style is known as conversational repair. It helps to reduce the misunderstanding of the English Language Learner (ESL) students that often exist due to the lack of language comprehension. However, many teachers do not understand that this is the ESL students’ attempt to learn and instead view it as a classroom disruption (Cho & Larke 2).
In the first group studied, students ranged from first to fourth grades. There were two students who were Chinese, two who were Korean, and one who was Indian. All had lived in the United States for less than one year. The two Korean students had studied English in Korea for three years before coming to the United States. The other students did not study English before coming to the United States. The students were in an ESL class part of the day with an ESL teacher who had been teaching ESL students for 15 years. They also spent part of the day with an ESL teacher and two tutors majoring in child development who wanted to teach from the local university (Cho & Larke 7).
The most common strategies used by both teachers were to repeat questions and allow students to comprehend the words. The second most common form was partial repeat, which often involved explaining one or more in the sentence or question using other words as the definition of the word seemed unclear (Cho & Larke 18). When working with the tutors, it was soon clear that the Korean students could read English better, but were unable to speak or understand oral communication better than their three peers (Cho & Larke 15). The peer tutors used questions that could be answered with one word to begin the process of having the Korean students, and then all students, answer questions. Next, the tutors used opposites to help increase the students’ vocabularies (Cho & Larke 16) and followed this with body language, such as the vocabulary for things like sneeze (Cho & Larke 17).
With 460 different languages being spoken in the public schools, and the Bilingual Act of 1968 mandating instruction in the students’ native language, computer instruction has become necessary in many areas to meet this requirement. It is not sufficient the way it is now implemented. In a study of over 210,000 students, over 5 years, most schools failed to bring students to a proficient level on standardized tests. Computer aided instruction has proven to bring the best success to the test scores. The key is to use the computers as a supplemental resource. The computer aided instruction allows for students to practice and learn language acquisition at their own rate, and to increase autonomy and proficiency (Beechler & Williams 86). There are many free web based programs available and the experiment demonstrated that most students responded positively using a supplemental computer program and to the games for learning the sight words (Beechler & Williams 90-91).
Classroom and ESL teachers are not the only educators that work with ESL students. School counselors are also involved with these students. Part of the pre-service training of the counselors in this study involved multicultural awareness and sensitivity training when working with ESL teachers and students. Additionally, it helps to train these pre-service counselors in collaborative roles that can be used to benefit the ESL students as they are a rapidly increasing student population (Bumham, Hooper, & Mantero 2).
Counselors are often the liaison between schools and the families. Therefore, counselors need the skills and cultural awareness on how to work with diverse ethnic and minority populations. While in the university, the pre-service counselors need to receive practice of their counseling skills with diverse populations, much like a student teacher practices during the semester or year that he or she student teachers. School counselors that are able to demonstrate awareness and sensitivity for diverse cultures benefit from the positive outcomes from students and their families. The counselor earns more respect and the students and families also feel more respected as well (Bumham 3).
Typical interactions between counselors and students is generally because of negative behavior, scheduling, or failing academic issues. The American School Counselors’ Association (ASCA) recommends that counselors work to help ESL student transition to their new schools, and have positive interactions, such as setting up tutoring, if needed (Bumham 4). The counselors can also work as liaisons between the ESL teachers to figure out what is effective and share those strategies with others. By counselors working in collaboration with teachers, the students benefit through the counselors being advocates for the students and agents of change when needed. By providing graduate students with internship opportunities, the university has graduates who gain experience and the partnering schools have counselors who are training counselors who will learn to serve diverse populations (Bumham 5-6).
There are differences in the students that speak English as a Second Language (ESL) at the university level. Many of these students possess a vocabulary that is almost as good or as comprehensive as their native counterparts. It is their writing skills that are significantly lacking when ESL students are in college. Their spoken grammar is sufficient. It is that the ESL students are not able to take their composition and develop and analyze ideas while translating them into English (Giridharan 578).
Academic discourse depends on the writer being able to read and write at sophisticated level when in college. Poor writing skills are one of the main reasons that ESL students do not complete their undergraduate studies. These poor writing skills include errors made in grammar, structure, and syntax (Giridharan 579). It is imperative that ESL students use resources that are available, such as the writing center. College professors can also help these students be successful. By providing examples of student work at various stages of the writing process, ESK students can learn to emulate these steps in the professor’s discipline. Examples of planning and organizing a paper are important and would also help other poor writers in the class. Other examples can include a draft of a paper that has been edited to demonstrate common errors. An instructor who is also willing to work with students by offering some correction and feedback on a draft is also helpful and it encourages the student to begin the process earlier and the student will then usually also spend more time on the assignment, producing better quality work (Giridharan 586).
Although larger, urban centers offer many opportunities for recent immigrants to learn English, rural areas do not offer the same opportunities. This makes it difficult for recent arrivals to learn and practice their English skills, often leaving them to rely on their native tongue, thereby limiting their employment opportunities and having trouble with social and cultural adjustments (Abbot & Rossiter 204). It is important for adult immigrants to be offered educational opportunities to learn English. It will help them acclimate better and it will help their children’s progress in school.
There are problems in getting adult programs to offer to immigrants in the rural setting. First, it is difficult to recruit and maintain staff, since it is a relatively low-paying position. Additionally, the staff that is hired often does not invest time in improving the program because of the low pay. Instructors also do not advance their studies because there is no advanced certification or degree offered, and therefore, no reward for their commitment and investment (Abbot & Rossiter 213).
There are differences in the students that speak English as a Second Language (ESL) at the university level. Many of these students possess a vocabulary that is almost as good or as comprehensive as their native counterparts. It is their writing skills that are significantly lacking when ESL students are in college. Their spoken grammar is sufficient. It is that the ESL students are not able to take their composition and develop and analyze ideas while translating them into English (Giridharan 578).
Academic discourse depends on the writer being able to read and write at sophisticated level when in college. Poor writing skills are one of the main reasons that ESL students do not complete their undergraduate studies. These poor writing skills include errors made in grammar, structure, and syntax (Giridharan 579). It is imperative that ESL students use resources that are available, such as the writing center. College professors can also help these students be successful. By providing examples of student work at various stages of the writing process, ESK students can learn to emulate these steps in the professor’s discipline. Examples of planning and organizing a paper are important and would also help other poor writers in the class. Other examples can include a draft of a paper that has been edited to demonstrate common errors. An instructor who is also willing to work with students by offering some correction and feedback on a draft is also helpful and it encourages the student to begin the process earlier and the student will then usually also spend more time on the assignment, producing better quality work (Giridharan 586).
The last group that will be studied are also college students, but they are pre-service teachers. The views and preconceptions that these teachers bring to the classroom will influence how they treat ESL students in their classroom (Fleming, Banou, & Fellus 39). Pre-service teachers are taught, in most schools of education, the communicative approach when teaching ESL students. This model emphasizes student-centered instruction. The main pedagogy is task-based activities. Function is more important than form. For the ESL student, it is more important to emphasize “how you use what you know” rather than the traditional student, where a teacher will often focus on “what you know”.
The function of language becomes as important as the structure of language. The emphasis is placed on oral communication rather than written communication. Both are important, but the oral skills develop more quickly. Social and cultural rules become a focus of study to learn the rules and to practice the language (Fleming 40). Language is a communication system first for the user, and the emphasis on grammar and rules come later (Fleming 42).
Pre-service teachers did have a wide-range of beliefs over what did constitute language. The survey respondents were at the beginning of their careers, and so long-term and core beliefs could not be tested. It does appear that these beliefs do become more consistent the longer a teacher is an ESL educator. This discrepancy is probably more based in lack of experience rather than in university curriculum (Fleming 43).
It did appear that pre-service teachers were aware of the need for cultural awareness and sensitivity. This awareness and understanding the need to respect the diverse populations of students that will enter their classrooms is as important as knowing the basis of language itself. Students are able to perceive if a teacher respects them and their culture. This perception, if positive, helps the students acclimate to their new culture. If the children are successfully acclimating, often the parents acclimate easier as well. This is one of the few lessons that parents often do learn from their children, as it seems that the younger the immigrant is, the easier the adaptation to the new country is as well.
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