Nurturing Identities of Competence among EAL Learners

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Nurturing Identities of Competence among EAL
Learners

• Jim Cummins
• The University of Toronto

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Language and the Human Spirit
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Language and the Human Spirit
God was God's name just as his name was Stephen.
DIEU was the French for God and that was God's
name too and when anyone prayed to God and said
DIEU then God knew at once that it was a French
person that was praying. But, though there were
different names for God in all the different
languages in the world and God understood what
all the people who prayed said in their different
languages, still God remained always the same God
and God's real name was God. James Joyce A
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
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Labels Defining Students by what they Lack

• None of the labels with which we categorize EAL
  students is fully satisfactory. But we should be
  aware of how some of these labels can shape our
  perception of the student.
• Terms such as EAL/ESL/ELL student implicitly
  connote an image of a student who lacks
  something, in this case sufficient knowledge of
  English to participate academically in the
  mainstream classroom.
• The defining attribute of the student is her (or
  his) limited English. Peers
• and teachers often see only the EAL student,
  not the person within, for the simple reason that
  students are unable to communicate who they are,
  what they can do, and what they hope for.
• Bilingual/EAL students struggle to escape from
  this externallyimposed
• identity cocoon. Their inability to fully
  express their intelligence and feelings over a
  prolonged period of time is frustrating and
  diminishing.

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Orientations to Language

• Richard Ruiz (1984)
• Language as problem
• Language as right
• Language as resource

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Maria (not childs real name) was referred for
psychological assessment by her grade 1 teacher,
who noted that she had difficulty in all aspects
of learning. She was given both speech and
hearing and psychological assessments. The former
assessment found that all structures and
functions pertaining to speech were within normal
limits and hearing was also normal. The findings
were summarised as follows Maria comes from
an Italian home where Italian is spoken mainly.
However, language skills appeared to be within
normal limits for English. The psychologists
conclusions, however, were very different. On
the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of
Intelligence (WPPSI), Maria obtained a Verbal IQ
of 89 and a Performance IQ of 99. In other words,
non-verbal abilities were virtually at the
average level while verbal abilities were 11
points below the mean, a surprisingly good score
given the clear cultural biases of the test and
the fact that the child had been learning English
in a school context for little more than a year.
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The report to Marias teacher read as
follows Maria tended to be very slow to
respond to questions, particularly if she were
unsure of the answers. Her spoken English was a
little hard to understand which is probably due
to poor English models at home (speech is within
normal limits). Italian is spoken almost
exclusively at home and this will be further
complicated by the coming arrival of an aunt and
grandmother from Italy. There is little doubt
that Maria is a child of low average ability
whose school progress is impeded by lack of
practice in English. Encourage Marias oral
participation as much as possible, and try to
involve her in extra-curricular activities where
she will be with her English speaking peers.
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Teaching Academic English is Everybodys Business
In recent years, increasing numbers of ESL
students have come into my science classes.
This year, one of my classes contains almost as
many non-English speaking students as there are
English speaking ones. Most of the ESL students
have very limited English skills, and as a result
are not involved in class discussions and cannot
complete assignments or pass tests.
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Teaching Academic English is Everybodys Business
(cont.)
I respect these students as I recognize that
often they have a superior prior education in
their own language. They are well-mannered,
hard-working and respectful of others. I enjoy
having a multiracial society in my classroom,
because I like these students for themselves and
their high motivational level. However, I am
troubled by my incompetence in adequately helping
many individual students of that society.
Because of language difficulties, they often
cannot understand me, nor can they read the text
or board notes. Each of these students needs my
personal attention, and I do not have that extra
time to give.
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Teaching Academic English is Everybodys
Business (cont.)
As well, I have to evaluate their ability to
understand science. They cannot show me their
comprehension. I have to give them a failing
mark! I question the educational decisions made
to assimilate ESL students into academic subject
classes before they have minimal skills in
English (extracted from "A teacher's daily
struggle in multi-racial classroom", Letter of
the Week, Toronto Star, 1994, April 2, p. B3).
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Whats Wrong with this Scenario?

• Isolation no evidence of any communication with
  language support teachers or other content
  teachers
• Leadership vacuum why is this issue not being
  discussed at school level?
• No awareness of relevant research at least 5
  years is typically required for EAL students to
  catch up academically cant be fixed in 1-2
  years of language support
• No awareness of scaffolding strategies to make
  content comprehensible for EAL students
• No conception of possible alternative assessment
  strategies.

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Overview

• We need to understand the nature of language
  proficiency
• Literacy engagement is key to literacy
  achievement
• Identity affirmation is key to literacy
  engagement
• Teaching for transfer across languages is key to
  literacy engagement

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What Is English Language Proficiency?A.
Conversational Fluency

• The ability to carry on a conversation in
  familiar face-to-face situations
• Developed by the vast majority of native speakers
  by the time they enter school at age 5
• Involves use of high frequency words and simple
  grammatical constructions
• EAL students typically require 1-2 years to
  attain peer-appropriate levels.

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What Is English Language Proficiency?B.
Discrete Language Skills

• Refers to the rule-governed aspects of language
  (phonological awareness, phonics, spelling,
  grammar, punctuation, etc.)
• Can be developed in two independent ways (a) by
  direct instruction, and (b) through immersion in
  a literacy-rich home or school environment where
  meanings are elaborated through language and
  attention is drawn to literate forms of language
  (e.g. letters on the pages of books)
• EAL students can learn these specific language
  skills concurrently with their development of
  basic vocabulary and conversational fluency.
  However, there is little direct transference to
  other aspects of language proficiency (e.g.
  vocabulary).

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What Is English Language Proficiency?C.Academic
Language Proficiency

• Includes knowledge of the less frequent
  vocabulary of English as well as the ability to
  interpret and produce increasingly complex
  written language
• I know like how to speak you know but I don't
  know the words like in History or Geography,
  what they are talking about. (Newcomer
  second-level students, Bentham Street). (ESRI
  report 2009, p. 81)
• EAL students typically require at least 5 years
  to attain grade expectations in language and
  literacy skills
• In order to catch up to grade norms within 6
  years, EAL students must make 15 months gain in
  every 10-month school year
• Because academic language is found primarily in
  books, extensive reading is crucial in enabling
  students to catch up
• Frequent writing, across genres, is also crucial
  in developing academic writing skills.

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Sample of Most Frequent 150 Academic Words
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The Cognate Connection
speed velocidad velocity sick enfermo infirm
meet encontrar encounter
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Conditions for Promoting Literacy Engagement
among ELL Students

• Literacy Achievement
• ?
• Literacy Engagement
• ?

?
Activate prior knowledge/Build background
knowledge
?
?
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Program for International StudentAchievement
Findings on Reading Engagement

• For example, data on the reading attainment of
  15-year olds in almost 30 countries showed that
  the level of a students reading engagement is a
  better predictor of literacy performance than his
  or her socioeconomic background, indicating that
  cultivating a students interest in reading can
  help overcome home disadvantages (OECD, 2004, p.
  8)

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Empirical Support for the Role of Engaged Reading

• Drawing on both the 1998 NAEP data from the
  United States and the results of the PISA study
  of reading achievement in international contexts,
  Guthrie (2004, p. 5) notes that students
• whose family background was characterized by
  low income and low education, but who were highly
  engaged readers, substantially outscored students
  who came from backgrounds with higher education
  and higher income, but who themselves were less
  engaged readers. Based on a massive sample, this
  finding suggests the stunning conclusion that
  engaged reading can overcome traditional barriers
  to reading achievement, including gender,
  parental education, and income.

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The Centrality of Literacy Engagement

• Amount and range of reading and writing
• Use of effective strategies for deep
  understanding of text
• Positive affect and identity investment in
  reading and writing
• Guthrie notes that in all spheres of life (e.g.
  driving a car, doing surgery, playing golf,
  gourmet cooking, etc.) participation is key to
  the development of proficiency. He notes that
  certainly some initial lessons are valuable for
  driving a car or typing on a keyboard, but
  expertise spirals upward mainly with engaged
  participation (2004, p. 8).

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Scaffold Language

• Graphic organizers
• Visuals in texts
• Demonstrations
• Hands-on experiences
• Collaborative group work
• Learning strategies (planning tasks,
  visualisation, grouping/classifying,
  note-taking/summarising, questioning for
  clarification, making use of multiple resources
  fortask completion)
• Language clarification (explanation, dictionary
  use, etc.)

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Prior Knowledge and ELL Students L1

• Nowhere is the role of prior knowledge more
  important than in second language educational
  contexts.
• Students who can access their prior knowledge
  through the language and culture most familiar to
  them can call on a rich array of schemata,
  whereas students who believe they can only use
  that knowledge they have explicitly learned in
  the second language are limited in their access
  (Chamot, 1998, p. 197).
• We didn't do good in like history or something
  because it was all about Ireland and stuff. But
  I still passed. (Newcomer primary students, Adams
  Street). (ESRI Report 2009, p. 161)
• Engaging students prior knowledge in this case
  might involve identifying the deeper themes that
  characterise events in Irish history (struggle
  for freedom, identity, struggle against
  oppression/injustice, conflict, etc.) and getting
  students to research these themes in contexts
  with which they are familiar, using parents,
  community members, and the Interenet as
  resources. Then relate the experiences in these
  contexts to events in Irish history.

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Affirm Student Identities

• Newcomer students are often in a vulnerable
  position they are unable to show their
  intelligence, personality, sense of humour, etc.
  to teachers and peers.
• They may have gone from a school situation where
  they were very competent academically to one
  where they now feel incompetent.
• Whey newcomer students feel welcomed in the
  school and classroom by teachers and peers, they
  will engage academically much more actively and
  effectively.

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Identity Texts a tool for cognitive engagement
and identity investment

• Identity texts refer to artifacts that students
  produce. Students take ownership of these
  artifacts as a result of having invested their
  identities in them.
• Once produced, these texts (written, spoken,
  visual, musical, or combinations in multimodal
  form) hold a mirror up to the student in which
  his or her identity is reflected back in a
  positive light.
• Students invest their identities in these texts
  which then become ambassadors of students
  identities. When students share identity texts
  with multiple audiences (peers, teachers,
  parents, grandparents, sister classes, the media,
  etc.) they are likely to receive positive
  feedback and affirmation of self in interaction
  with these audiences.

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Hiras Story
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Teaching for Transfer

• Encourage newcomers to write in L1 and then work
  from that version to English (and/or Irish) help
  can be provided by community volunteers,
  bilingual students whose English is better
  developed, or through technology (e.g., Google
  language tools)
• Where cognates exist, draw students attention to
  them
• Encourage students to compare and contrast how
  their languages work (differences between English
  and L1)
• Encourage students to create and web-publish
  bilingual books and other kinds of multimedia
  projects (e.g., photo essays, video creation,
  PowerPoint presentations, etc.)
• Engage in sister-class (e-twinning) projects
  where multiple languages might be used for
  project-based inquiry and publication of results.

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Resources

• www.multiliteracies.ca (Multiliteracies project)
• http//thornwood.peelschools.org/Dual (Dual
  Language Showcase)
• www.curriculum.org/secretariat/archive.html
  (webcast on Teaching and Learning in Multilingual
  Ontario)
• www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/res
  earch/whatWorks.html (short pdf files on what
  works including Literacy Development in
  Multilingual Schools by Jim Cummins)
• Literacy, Technology and Diversity Teaching for
  Success in Changing Times (Jim Cummins, Kristin
  Brown, Dennis Sayers Allyn Bacon, 2007)
  (http//www.allynbaconmerrill.com/bookstore/produc
  t.asp?isbn020538935Xrl1)