ESL student education and academic outcomes

ESL Student Education

Over the past decade, there has been an influx in the number of students for whom English is a second language. All though theses students are offered an education upon entry into the United States, little research and discussion has taken place regarding the effects of this lack of primary English language skill on the student in primary and secondary grades. One important point that few people realize is that an ESL (English as a second language) student is not just Hispanic; they are also a large number of Asian ESL students. Too often, this category of students is categorized as individuals from Mexico or the Dominic Republic. Along with the lack of discussion is clarity of ways to deal with the growing problem. This population does create a large portion of ESL's however; they do not make up the entire population. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss and clarify ways to correct/improve the situation for these ESL students. Harry (1992) determines that in the face of the rapidly increasing cultural diversity of the United States, the educational system is faced with the challenge of explaining its services and practices to people who may hold radically different types of cultural understanding, assumptions, and expectations regarding education. Current demographic projections have underscored the urgency of finding radical solutions for the evident mismatch between school systems and many of those they serve.

School reform is a focus of the national education agenda, high academic standards are implemented in every state, and federal legislation requires annual testing of Title 1 students in Grades 3-8 and again in high school. Moreover, English-language learner (ELL) students are tested every year until they are proficient in English. Standards and the assessments that are aligned with them have become the rallying principles for improved academic performance in schools (Echevarria, Short & Powers, 2006)

Harry (1992), conducted research that was concerned predominantly with the Hispanic population, the purpose of his study is to understand where the discrepancies are taking place and what can be done to correct this situation. Spanish is the primary language in all homes in this particular study, even those children born in the United States learned Spanish as their first language. Thus, English became a requirement only upon entrance into school, which, for most, was between kindergarten and the third grade. These children were placed directly into regular education English-speaking classes with varying amounts of "pull-out" for the "English as a Second Language" (ESL) program. Some parents interpreted the second-language difficulties in school as a reflection of teachers' intolerance and unreasonable expectation.

Some would think that if classes were made specifically for ESL students, perhaps then they would be able to excel. That in fact it may cause the ESL student to do better, however Arriaza (1997), conducted research that showed that these desired results are actually not often acquired through this "separation." He actually reports through interviews that students originally from Mexico were put into the same grade in English speaking classes in the United States, and this in turn was not a good thing. They report difficulties in making friendships, communication with peers, and feeling of isolation.

They kept me in the same grade I had completed in Mexico, because I didn't speak English. So, instead of fifth grade they put me in fourth. I was assigned to an ESL class for one year. Later I was placed in an English-only class. Throughout the year, he made not a single friend whose native language was English, due to his limited English skills and his social isolation from most of the school's population. During his first middle school year, Julian's social life did not change substantially. He only met students who shared the same English as a Second Language (ESL) program. Once he was placed in a course for bilingual and native English speakers, he came into contact with native English speakers and developed some friendships outside the ESL group. His brother Mario repeated this experience almost exactly; with the difference, that Mario played basketball and quickly learned American football. Sports made it possible for him to socialize more quickly with a wider population in the fifth and sixth grades. In this sense, Mario never felt the same degree of isolation experienced by his more bookish brother. (Arriaza, 1997)

Echevarria, Short & Powers (2006), tested a model of instruction for Ell's, the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SLOP) model, to ascertain its effects on academic literacy development. The researchers proposed that if schools are to provide a quality education for all children, it is critical that teachers implement empirically sound practices, especially for Ell's, who consistently underperforms in academic settings. The level of academic achievement for Ell's has lagged significantly behind that of their language-majority peers. For example, in California, where over 1.5 million Ell's attend public school, students who are not proficient in English perform less well on standardized tests than do students who are proficient in English. Eleven percent of 7th-grade Ell's who took the reading portion of the state test in 2002 scored at or above the 50th percentile, compared with 57% of English-proficient language-minority students and 48% of all students who took the tests (California Department of Education, Educational Demographics Unit, 2004).

Furthermore, most Ell's in U.S. schools are of Hispanic descent; recent national tests of reading and writing show that at the three grade levels tested (4, 8, 12), many more Hispanic students performed at the below-basic level than did White students and Asian/Pacific Islander students. Far fewer students performed at proficient or advanced levels than did those groups (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). That finding is particularly noteworthy because the NAEP examinations usually exempt students at beginning levels of ESL proficiency.

It is also significant that Ell's have high dropout rates and are more frequently placed in lower ability groups and academic tracks than are language-majority students. Waggoner (1999) reported that about 13% of "newcomer and linguistically different" youth have either never been enrolled in U.S. schools or have left before completing high school. A recent study of high school attrition in Texas (Johnson, 2004) showed that 49% of Hispanic students who were ninth graders in 2000-2001 left high school before graduation, compared with only 22% of Caucasian students. Another study of districts in the South showed similar discrepancies between Hispanic dropout rates and Caucasian dropout rates (Wainer, 2004). Many of the students in both studies were Ell's.

Students have difficulty in school for a number of reasons; one is the mismatch between student needs and teacher preparation. Although the NCLB Act calls for highly qualified teachers in every core academic classroom by 2006 (2003 for new Title I teachers), the supply of certified ESL and bilingual teachers is too small for the demand. National studies (e.g., National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996) and regional and district-level studies (e.g., Wainer, 2004) have-reported significant shortages of teachers qualified to teach students with limited English proficiency and of bilingual teachers trained to teach in a second language. Fewer than 13% of teachers in the nation have received professional development to prepare them for teaching linguistically and culturally diverse students (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002). To compensate, principals hire less qualified teachers, use substitute teachers, cancel courses, bus students elsewhere, require reading specialists to fill the void, increase class size, or ask teachers to teach outside their field of preparation (Vogt & Shearer, 2003). It is not uncommon to find untrained para-educators acting as English-language teachers for ELL students (Lavadenz, 1994).