English Language Learners

English Language Learners (ELL) are the fastest growing segment of the student population in the US.  They are students who don't speak English as a first language.  2-3.3 million students are ELL, and 73% of them are native Spanish speakers.  Two in five Latino students aged 15-17 were enrolled below grade level, meaning that the content of what they are learning is seldom age appropriate.  A common mistake that teachers make is treating ELL students as if they have disabilities.  If anything, some ways you handle an ELL are similar to handling a student with a hearing disability, however, but not in all cases.

ELL development is stage dependent, and has nothing to do with age.  There are five stages:

1. Preproduction- In this stage, the child is pretty much silent.  They are taking everything in and listening, and may imitate what others do in class.  Some may be prone to body gestures, not to be misconstrued as physical aggression.
2. Early Production- This lasts from six months to a year.  In this stage, the child uses important works necessary for survival only.  The child might not be able to tell whether something is a single word or a group of words.
3. Speech Emergence- Lasts from one to three years.  During this stage, they usually leave out plural and past tense, and they can comprehend the language better than they can speak it.  They use appropriate content words with the wrong form, and use grammatical forms that are literal translations from their first language.  They might generalize the meanings of some words.
4. Intermediate Fluency-  This stage lasts from three to five years.  At this point, they have excellent comprehension and few grammatical errors.
5. Advanced Fluency- Lasts from five to seven years.  At this stage, they have near native speech.

It's easy to assume the child knows more of the language than they actually do, because they will often act like they understand to fit in with their peers.  To get the best idea of where they are in their development, watch them interacting with their peers.

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are needed in everyday social situations.  They are not cognitively demanding and the language is not specialized.  These usually develop within six months.  The child usually comprehends by observing non-verbal behavior, watching others' reaction, voice cues, pictures, and asking for statements to be repeated or clarified.

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) refers to formal academic learning.  This involves listening to, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material.  This is essential for students to succeed in school, and usually takes around five to seven years.   CALP is harder than BICS because it goes beyond vocab, and involves comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring, which is very cognitively demanding.

Lesson Prep and Tips:

• Have content and language objectives
• Make sure it's age appropriate while integrating content
• Link new content to students' background
• Teach so they can learn without you
• Break concepts down
• Use different question types
• Lots of group work, to give them more chances to observe peers in social situations
• Give more time to respond
• Clarify using native language
• Hands on activities using models

Working with ELL students requires a lot of adapting, and every teacher should take the necessary steps to help these students learn as best as they can.