Planning for English Language Learners

Right now in my 10th grade math class I am teaching a unit on Probability and Statistics.  This unit has always presented problems for English language learners and therefore I would like to focus this discussion on that group.

After reviewing the TEACH-NOW literature there seems to be agreement that there are five or six.  Haynes (2005) discusses the five stages as being Pre-production, Early Production, Speech Emergent, Intermediate Fluency, and Advanced Fluency.  Robertson & Ford (2008), however add Beginning Fluency in between Haynes's Speech Emergent and Intermediate Fluency.  In looking over both Haynes as well as Robertson and Ford it appears that the biggest addition seems to be the idea that new contexts and academic language are challenging at the beginning fluency stage and that individual will have trouble expressing themselves.  Although, these characteristics are certainly evident within Haynes's five stages as well.  With that in mind, I would like to consider students that I teach with reference to the six stages offered by Robertson & Ford.

In reflecting in my math class the following four learners (names altered to protect privacy) come to mind:

1. Jay - a beginning fluency English language learner who has minor troubles expressing himself in social situations, but does have difficulty picking up new content specific language and understanding what he is being asked to do in certain questions.  He finds content specific directions to be a challenge and seeks clarification often.
2. Bill - a speech emergent English language learner who over the course of the unit has shown an increase in content specific vocabulary and decrease in errors as familiarity grows.  In challenging problems that are in an unfamiliar context, a requirement of MYP math, Bob continues to have difficulties and relies on context clues from others to tackle the problem.  
3. Yolanda - an intermediate fluency English language learner does especially well communicating in social settings.  Her academic language proficiency is very good and she has been doing well to express her opinion and offer solutions to complex problems.  There are, however, still some gaps in content specific vocabulary, though these are becoming less frequent.
4. Stella - an advanced fluency English language learner, she for all intents and purposes can do all things in math class like a native speaker.  One can only tell that she is not a native speaker by her very slight accent and misuse of common English expressions, which might actually be culturally based than language based.

When we think about English language learners we often think about those students that sit in the corner and are very quiet, trying to get through the class without being called upon by the teacher.  This is not the case for the four students I describe above.  In the case of Stella, she is just about there and all there is that separates her from native like English language use is her accent.  While most strategies call for continued support in content areas and writing (Haynes, 2005) this will not nip the problem.  In order to help Stella, the teacher needs to model correct speech in a natural voice so that Stella can hear it spoken in a neutral accent.  Allow for students like Stella to practice her pronunciation while preaching tolerance and the fact that just everyone has an accent (Rustbelt, 2011).  For Yolanda, Jay as well as Bill the use of graphic organizers, vocabulary and language development strategies and meaning-based context & universal themes would be helpful (Bongolan & Moir, 2005).  

What is interesting to think about is on the surface, two of the four students I refer to here would likely go unnoticed by many others.  In fact, all but one, Bill, is not considered an ESL student by the school and even Bill is scheduled to be taken off of ESL support at the end of this school year.

References:

Bongolan, RS. & Moir, E. (2005). Six Key Strategies for Teachers of English Language Learners.  retrieved from http://suu.edu/ed/fso/resources/esl-six-key-strategies.pdf

Haynes, J.  (2005).  Stages of Second Language Acquisition.  Retrieved from http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/language_stages.php

Robertson, K. & Ford, K. (2008). Language Acquisition: An Overview.  Retrieved from http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/26751/

Rusbult, C. (2011).  Improving Pronunciation with a Problem-Solving Strategy.  Retrieved from http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/esl-learning.htm