BILC/EDSL 6324

1. Living Between Worlds David and Yvonne Freeman The University of Texas at Brownsville

3. Why “Between Worlds” in This Title? Our students move between the world of their families and their native countries True for all students but for ELLs they come from different worlds… often worlds different from their teachers Many of our students are marginalized by the instruction they receive and the attitudes they encounter

4. Why “Between Worlds” in This Title? Many feel they do not belong anywhere-not accepted by school or home community cultural ambivalence- Others succeed in school but in the process lose home community Students may enter school monolingual in one language and leave school monolingual in another (lose L1) Rather than the best of both worlds, they trade one world for another

5. Why “Second Language Acquisition” in Title A number of linguistic, psychological, and social factors interact to permit or deny students access to a new language Teachers need to know about recent research, language learning theories, and effective practices

6. Living Between Worlds

23. What factors affect the school success of ELLs living between worlds? The school exists within family, community, state, and national contexts These contexts interact in complex ways to affect the success of English language learners No one factor can explain success or failure However, we can change different aspects of these contexts to assess the affect on our English language learners to improve their chances for success

24. national and state context community and family context school context dynamic contextual interaction model

25. National and State Context National and state attitudes toward immigrants legal mandates mass media

26. Legal Mandates Despite research showing the benefits of primary language instruction, legal mandates and common-sense practice have led to ineffective programs for ELLs California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have enacted laws that result in English only instruction for English language learners This has led to school programs, such as structured English immersion, that do not develop students’ first languages. Many other states have either ESL or transitional bilingual programs that do not fully develop students’ first languages.

27. Family and Community Context Neighborhood conditions Family conditions Family education level Developmental needs

28. Mother’s Education Level

29. school facility school resources school climate student attitudes school peers level of staffing teacher attitudes teacher knowledge and skills parent involvement afterschool programs student language proficiency students’ prior schooling students’ first language and culture School Context

30. Who Are Our English Language Learners Living Between Worlds? Adequate formal schooling students Limited formal schooling students Long-term English learners Potential long-term English learners

31. Newly arrived with adequate schooling recent arrivals (less than 5 years in U.S. ) adequate schooling in native country soon catch up academically may still score low on standardized tests given in English

32. Newly Arrived with Limited Formal Schooling recent arrivals ( less than 5 years in U.S. ) interrupted or limited schooling in native country limited native language literacy below grade level in math poor academic achievement

33. Long term English learner 7 or more years in the U.S. below grade level in reading and writing mismatch between student perception of achievement and actual grades some get adequate grades but score low on tests have had ESL or bilingual instruction, but no consistent program

34. Potential Long Term English Learners students who begin their schooling speaking a language other than English K-5 parents with low levels of education parents struggling financially and/or socially

35. school facility school resources school climate student attitudes school peers level of staffing teacher attitudes teacher knowledge and skills parent involvement afterschool programs student language proficiency students’ prior schooling students’ first language and culture School Context

37. Mrs. Brown “Teaching isn’t what it used to be.”

38. Mrs. Brown Teaching Isn’t What It Used to Be Analysis students have changed teachers don’t understand students’ languages, cultures, and values teachers struggle to communicate with parents teachers become frustrated Positive response

39. What Influences How Teachers Teach? Several factors interact to account for how teachers teach and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they develop

40. What influences how teachers teach?

41. What influences how teachers teach?

42. How do people learn and how do they acquire language? The way teachers teach also depends on how they believe people learn and how they think people acquire language Different methods follow from different views of learning

43. How do people learn and how to they acquire language? “Learning and language acquisition overlap to a great extent in the sense that they are both social, contextual, and goal oriented. That is, individuals learn both content and language as they engage with others in a variety of settings to accomplish specific purposes” (Faltis and Hudelson, 1998)

44. Teacher’s Role The role of the teacher is to mediate learning for students by providing scaffolds that enable them to solve problems and carry out activities independently.

45. school facility school resources school climate student attitudes school peers level of staffing teacher attitudes teacher knowledge and skills parent involvement afterschool programs student language proficiency students’ prior schooling students’ first language and culture School Context

46. My Name is Jorge on Both Sides of the River (Medina, 1999) ¿Porqué soy tonto? En mi país Yo era listo Why am I dumb? In my country I was smart

47. Views of Bilinguals (O. García, 2009) People, including researchers, have generally taken the view that bilinguals are really two monolinguals in one person This view has led to misunderstandings about bilingual people and bilingual programs García argues that we need to see bilingualism as a dynamic process in which the two or more languages constantly interact

48. Balanced Bilinguals The reason that people think of bilinguals as being “balanced” is that they picture bilinguals as being like two monolinguals in one person. However, bilinguals are not simply the sum of two monolinguals L1 L2

49. A Holistic View of Bilinguals L1+L2 “the bilingual is an integrated whole who cannot easily be decomposed into two separate parts… he has a unique and specific linguistic configuration” Grossjean 2009

50. A holistic view of bilinguals A bilingual is like a high hurdler. She doesn’t have to jump as high as a high jumper or run as fast as a sprinter Instead, she is a unique individual with special skills

51. Dynamic Bilingualism Dynamic bilingualism -Languages interact continually Emergent bilinguals constantly access both their languages as they use them with different people in different contexts for different purposes

52. Theoretical Support for Using Both Languages in Instruction New knowledge is built on prior understandings. If those understandings were built through L1, they can best be accessed through L1 Literacy skills are interdependent, so teaching should facilitate cross-language transfer

53. Ways to Support Students’ First Languages and Cultures While They Develop English There are many ways that teachers can support and build students primary languages and cultures as their students develop English

54. Ways to use two languages together Assign bilingual pairs Arrange sister class exchanges Conduct language comparison studies to build metalinguistic awareness

55. Metalinguistic Awareness

57. Ways to Use Two Languages Group students heterogeneously for a writing assignment Students read in L1 and retell stories to other students in L2 Students use bilingual dictionaries as a resource or read bilingual books or books in their L1

58. Ways to Use Two Languages Students are grouped by L1 to discuss in L1 how to do homework in English Students use L1 to discuss homework with parents Students are given awards for proficiency in a non-English language

59. Ways to Use the Two Languages Together Focus on cognates (democracy, democracia)

60. create bilingual multimedia books and projects

62. school facility school resources school climate student attitudes school peers level of staffing teacher attitudes teacher knowledge and skills parent involvement afterschool programs student language proficiency students’ prior schooling students’ first language and culture School Context

63. national and state context community and family context school context dynamic contextual interaction model