Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners

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Practical Guidelines for the Education of English
Language Learners

• David J. Francis, Ph.D.
• Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and
  Statistics
• Center on Instruction ELL Strand
• University of Houston
• Presented at LEP Partnership Meeting
• Washington, DC
• October 28, 2006

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Practical Guidelines for the Education of ELLs

• Collaborators
• Nonie Lesaux, GSE, Harvard University
• Mabel Rivera, COI, TIMES, University of Houston
• Michael Kieffer, GSE, Harvard University
• Hector Rivera, COI, TIMES, University of Houston

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Practical Guidelines for the Education of ELLs

• Three books
• Research-based Recommendations for Instruction
  and Academic Interventions
• Research-based Recommendations for Serving
  Adolescent Newcomers
• Research-based Recommendations for the Use of
  Accommodations in Large-scale Assessments

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Guide to working with the Documents

• Single document with separate sections vs.
  separate documents
• Intent was for documents that would work
  together, but which could also stand on their own
• Redundancy of some background material
• Conventions
• Footnotes for information the reader might need
  immediately while reading
• Endnotes for references and more detailed
  explication of the literature behind a point

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Key Reference Materials

• Instruction and Intervention
• August Shanahan (2006)
• Genessee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, Christian
  (2006)
• Newcomers
• August Shanahan (2006) Genessee et al. (2006)
• Short Boyson (2004)
• Accommodations
• Abedi, Hofstetter, Lord (2004).
• Sireci, Li, Carpati (2003)
• Rivera, Collum, Shafner Willner (2006)

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ELLs and NCLB

• Membership is defined by limited proficiency in
  an area that directly affects learning and
  assessment
• Group membership is expected to be temporary
• ELLs face unique set of learning challenges
• to develop the content-related knowledge and
  skills that define state standards
• while simultaneously acquiring a second language,
  and
• particularly in the case of young children, at a
  time when their first language is not fully
  developed, and
• (possibly) to demonstrate their learning on an
  assessment in the second language

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ELLs and NCLB

• ELLs present a unique set of challenges to
• Teachers
• Administrators
• Assessment Systems
• Accountability Systems

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Academic Language is the Key Organizing Principle

• See Scarcella (2003) for detailed introduction to
  Academic Language
• Development of academic language
• is fundamental to academic success in all domains
• is the primary source of ELLs difficulties with
  academic content at all ages and grades
• can remain a challenge even after students
  achieve proficiency on current state language
  proficiency tests
• affects ELLs performance on large-scale
  assessments

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Academic Language

• Impossible to overstate the role that academic
  language plays in determining students success
• Good conversational English skills may be
  accompanied by limited academic language skills
• For example, in studies of elementary and middle
  school students, including those no longer
  designated as LEP, mean vocabulary scores below
  the 20th percentile are not uncommon.

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Academic Language

• Academic Language is comprised of many skills
• Vocabulary knowledge (both depth and breadth)
• Depth knowing multiple meanings, both common
  and uncommon, for a given word
• Breadth knowing the meanings of many words,
  including multiple words for the same, or
  related, concepts
• Written vocabulary as distinct from oral
  vocabulary
• Understanding of complex sentence structures and
  syntax
• Understanding the structure of argument, academic
  discourse, and expository texts

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General Organization

• Foreword
• Overview
• Description of the Population
• Organization and General Methods
• Recommendations for (multiple sections)
• Conceptual Framework
• Specific Recommendations

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Who Are English Language Learners?

• Comprise one of the fastest-growing groups among
  the school-aged population in this nation
• Over 9M students, roughly 5.5M classified as LEP
• ELL school-aged population has grown by more than
  169 from 1979 to 2003 (vs. 12 growth in
  general)
• Expected to be 30 of school-aged population in
  2015
• Over 400 different home languages are represented
• Spanish is the predominant home language (70)

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Who Are English Language Learners?

• Largest and fastest growing ELL populations are
• Students who immigrated before Kindergarten, and
• U.S. born children of immigrants
• Compared to native English-speaking peers
• On Grade 4 NAEP, ELLs were 1/4th as likely to
  score proficient or above in Reading and 1/3rd as
  likely in Math
• ELLs are less likely to score proficient on State
  tests
• These results may be biased in so far as they
  reflect performance of students who retain the
  designation of LEP

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Who Are English Language Learners?

• Some states have begun to look at the performance
  of ELLs on State tests after they have gained
  proficiency in English
• These reports show that some ELL students do well
  in school
• Nevertheless, many students who have lost the
  formal LEP designation continue to struggle with
  academic text, content, and language
• The documents were written with this latter group
  of current and former LEP students in mind

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Book 1 Instruction and Intervention

• Foreword
• Overview
• Reading
• Conceptual Framework
• Recommendations
• Mathematics
• Conceptual Framework
• Recommendations

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Guiding Principles for Planning Instruction and
Intervention

• Reading is fundamental to the development of
  content-area knowledge and academic success
• Applies to all learners
• We distinguish three functions for instruction
  augmentation, prevention, remediation
• To be effective, educators must have a clear
  understanding of the specific sources of
  difficulty or weakness for individual students
  and groups of students

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Guiding Principles for Planning Instruction and
Intervention

• ELLs often lack the academic language necessary
  for comprehending and analyzing text
• The great majority of ELLs experiencing reading
  difficulties struggle with the skills related to
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• These areas are mutually interdependent

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Recommendations on Reading Instruction and
Intervention

• ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive
  instruction in phonological awareness and phonics
  in order to build decoding skills
• These skills are highly correlated across
  alphabetic languages (i.e., correlations above
  .9)
• K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase
  opportunities for ELLs to develop sophisticated
  vocabulary knowledge

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Recommendations on Reading Instruction and
Intervention

• Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must equip
  ELLs with strategies and knowledge to comprehend
  and analyze challenging narrative and expository
  texts
• Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs
  reading fluency must focus on vocabulary
  development and increased exposure to print

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Recommendations on Reading Instruction and
Intervention

• In all K-12 classrooms across the U.S., ELLs need
  significant opportunities to engage in
  structured, academic talk
• Independent reading is beneficial, BUT
• it must be structured and purposeful, and
• there must be a good reader-text match

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Recommendations on Mathematics Instruction and
Intervention

• Generally much less research to guide
  recommendations
• Academic language is as central to mathematics as
  it is to other academic areas
• a significant source of difficulty for many ELLs
  who struggle with mathematics
• ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive
  instruction and intervention in basic mathematics
  concepts and skill
• ELLs need academic language support to understand
  and solve the word problems that are often used
  for mathematics assessment and instruction

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Book 2 Adolescent Newcomers

• Foreword
• Overview
• Elements of Effective Instruction
• Organizational Elements of Effective Programs

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Elements of Effective Instruction for Adolescent
Newcomers

• Short Boyson (2004)
• August Shanahan (2006)
• All middle and secondary school classrooms must
  address the language and literacy skills
  adolescent newcomers need for content area
  learning
• All adolescent newcomers need instruction in
  academic language, which they need for text
  comprehension and school success

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Elements of Effective Instruction for Adolescent
Newcomers

• Adolescent newcomers need direct, explicit
  instruction to support their comprehension of
  challenging texts
• Adolescent newcomers must receive intensive
  instruction in writing for academic purposes
• Effective classroom instruction begins with
  systematic assessment of students strengths and
  needs, as well as ongoing monitoring of students
  progress
• Students with word-reading difficulties need
  targeted and explicit intervention

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Organizational Elements of Effective Newcomer
Programs

• Empirical research is limited
• Systematic support for assessment and placement
  of students
• Heterogeneous grouping
• Extended instructional time
• Coordinated efforts newcomer programs, programs
  for advanced ELLs, and mainstream classes
• Targeted resources for language and literacy
  instruction

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Book 3 Accommodations

• Foreword
• Overview
• Review of State Policies
• Meta-analysis
• Technical Appendices

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Use of Accommodations in Large-scale Assessments

• Rivera, Collum, Shafer Willner (2006)
• Abedi, Hofstetter, Lord (2004).
• Sireci, Li, Carpati (2003)

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Content Knowledge and Language Proficiency

• Assessments of content knowledge are influenced
  by students language proficiency
• Assessments with the most linguistically
  challenging content show the largest performance
  gaps between ELLs and native English speakers
• It is easier to separate language proficiency
  from content knowledge in some domains (e.g.,
  mathematics) than in others (e.g., reading
  language arts)
• Appropriate accommodations for ELLs will address
  their linguistic needs either directly or
  indirectly

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State Policies

• Educational agencies across the nation provide
  accommodations to ELLs as needed
• The criteria for selection and strategies for
  implementation vary by state, according to many
  factors
• Rivera, Collum, Shafer Willner (2006) have
  developed a comprehensive taxonomy for thinking
  about accommodations

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Partial Listing of Accommodations Responsive to
Needs of ELLs

• Accommodations of Testing Conditions
• Extended time
• Breaks offered between sessions
• Bilingual glossaries
• Bilingual dictionaries
• English glossaries
• English dictionaries

• Accommodations as Test Modifications
• Directions read in English
• Directions read in native language
• Directions translated into native language
• Simplified English
• Side-by-side bilingual version of the test
• Native language test
• Dictation of answers or use of a scribe
• Test taker responds in native language

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Criteria for Evaluation of Accommodations

• Effectiveness
• Do ELL students who receive the accommodation
  outperform ELL students who do not receive the
  accommodation?
• Validity
• Does the accommodation alter the construct
  validity of the test? Do non-ELL students who
  receive the accommodation outperform non-ELL
  students who do not receive the accommodation?
• Practicality

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Effective Accommodations for ELLs Results of a
Meta-Analysis

• 11 studies
• Each study used random assignment of ELLs and
  non-ELLs to testing conditions with and without
  accommodations
• Involved 37 different samples of students
• Reported 37 different tests of the effectiveness
  of accommodations for ELLs

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Study Descriptions

• Grades included
• 4th n11
• 8th n22
• 5th or 6th n2 each
• Subject Areas
• Math n 17
• Science n19
• Reading n1
• Type of test
• NAEP items n22
• NAEP and TIMSS n6
• State Accountability Assessment n9 (two
  different states)

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Study Descriptions (cont.)

• Types of accommodations
• Simplified English (n15)
• English dictionary/glossary (n11)
• Bilingual dictionary/glossary (n5)
• Extra time (n2)
• Spanish language test (n2)
• Dual language questions (n1)
• Dual language booklet (n1)

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Results for Fixed Effects Model
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Results for Random Effects Model
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Summary of Results

• Of the seven types of accommodations used, only
  one had an overall positive effect on ELL
  outcomes English language dictionaries and
  glossaries
• Produced an average effect, which is positive and
  statistically different from zero
• No indication that this effect varied across the
  studied conditions

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Summary of Results

• Findings for native language tests and bilingual
  glossaries are mixed
• Results varied across studies as evidenced by
  homogeneity test
• Too few studies to say conclusive what the
  important factors are, but some reasonable
  candidates are
• Matching language of assessment with language of
  instruction
• Ensuring that students are literate in L1

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Summary of Results

• Results for Simplified English were less
  promising than expected
• Test of heterogeneity was not rejected,
  indicating that the small average effect is a
  reasonable characterization of the results of the
  current studies

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Conclusions

• For any accommodation to be successful in the
  testing situation, students must have experience
  with it during regular instruction
• The alignment of curriculum, instruction, and
  assessment is crucial to the academic success of
  all students
• Accommodations alone will not be effective in
  raising test scores of ELLs

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Conclusions

• Lack of effects in these studies for Simplified
  English is not an indictment of universal design
• Research base is limited in important ways
• Few studies involving State accountability tests
• Few studies in reading and language arts
• No accommodation has been studied definitively