What English Language Learners Have to Say about NCLB Testing

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (13) ◽  
pp. 19-38
Author(s):  
Mary Yee
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Phenomenological Study ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Negative Experience ◽  
Ell Students

This study is a phenomenological study that examines the No Child Left Behind testing experience of middle school English language learners (ELLs) through their journal writing. Thirteen students in a seventh/ eighth-grade self-contained Chinese bilingual classroom wrote journal entries in response to a prompt asking their opinion of standardized testing; students responded in either Chinese or English. The author found that students had many incisive critiques of testing and test preparation, articulated reasons for not performing well, expressed their psychological or emotional reactions, and offered recommendations for improving the experience. Some students used their knowledge of the Chinese educational system to compare and contrast their testing experiences. The students’ overall negative experience was due to overtesting, the ineffectiveness of remedial computer programs, “luck” as an unpredictable factor in multiple-choice tests, or their status as second language learners. Reactions of anxiety and fear of doing poorly also mattered. The author relates the concept of “student voice” to counter-narratives, identity construction, and resistance to dominant discourses about immigrant ELL students. She discusses how these “student voices” disrupt essentialized views of ELLs and recent immigrant students and urges educators to make the voices of immigrant and ELL students more prominent in classrooms.

scholarly journals The Impact of Loss and Alienation in English Language Learners

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 42-49
Author(s):  
Miguel Abrantes Antunes
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Standardized Testing ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Critical Consciousness ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Emotional Impact ◽  
The Impact

Educational institutions have the capacity to support immigrant students and English Language Learners through their emotional struggles with racial melancholia, dissociation, and cultural assimilation by utilizing validating curricula that promotes critical consciousness. Unfortunately, many secondary educational institutions routinely neglect the persistent emotional impact of racial melancholia and dissociation while instituting oppressive Eurocentric curriculum teeming with white privilege that undermines cultural diversity. A primary reason why so much modern humanities curricula is devoid of diversity and humanity is because it is subordinate to standardized testing leading to rote, ineffectual academic experiences negating the development of critical thinking skills and critical consciousness for immigrant students and English Language Learners. 

Group Counseling for English Language Learners to Promote Academic Navigational Capital

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 2156759X2097956
Author(s):  
Adonay A. Montes ◽  
Erika Ramos
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Group Counseling ◽  
English Language Learner ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Learner ◽  
Ell Students ◽  
Academic Settings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Minimal Research

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of an 8-week academic navigational capital group with English language learner (ELL) students. Minimal research exists examining ELL students’ acquisition of navigational capital skills (skills needed to navigate and succeed in academic settings) in school. We used a pre- and postintervention survey to measure the impact of the group. Results showed growth in the academic navigational capital skills of all participants. Such increases represent a starting blueprint to consider when working with ELL students.

scholarly journals English Language Learners in Canadian Schools: Emerging Directions for School-Based Policies

2012 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Cummins ◽  
Rania Mirza ◽  
Saskia Stille
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
School Administrators ◽  
Academic Learning ◽  
Esl Teachers ◽  
Ell Students ◽  
Literacy Engagement ◽  
Biliteracy Development

This article attempts to provide ESL teachers, school administrators, and policymakers with a concise overview of what matters in promoting academic success among learners of English in Canadian schools. We review research focused on bilingual and biliteracy development, the nature of academic language, and the roles of societal power relations and identity negotiation in determining the academic achievement of English language learners (ELL). On the basis of this research, we propose the Literacy Engagement framework that identifies literacy engagement as a major determinant of literacy achievement for ELL and non-ELL students. In order to enable ELL students to engage with literacy, the framework highlights the importance of teachers scaffolding meaning, connecting with students’ lives, affirming student identities, and extending their awareness and knowledge of language across the curriculum. The application of the framework is illustrated with reference to the literacy and academic learning experiences of two ELL students in the Toronto area.

scholarly journals Crossing Borders toward Young Transnational Lives

2014 ◽  
pp. 200-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Sue Kasun ◽  
Cinthya M. Saavedra
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Cultural Identification ◽  
Return Visits ◽  
The U.S

Young immigrant youth often live their lives across borders, either by physically crossing them for return visits and/or by metaphorically crossing them through social media and cultural identification. The authors argue these students are better understood as transnational, shifting the focus for educators away from imagining their immigrant students on a straight, one-way path to assimilation in the U.S. to understanding these youths’ abilities to cross borders. Specifically, they call for a redesignation of English Language Learners (ELLs) as Transnational English Learners (TELs). Highlighting examples of educators’ successful border-crossing work, the authors call for educators to cross borders as well in their curriculum and relationships with transnational youth.

Ensuring Social Justice for English Language Learners

2021 ◽  
pp. 489-506
Author(s):  
Juan A. Rios Vega ◽  
Cecile M. Arquette ◽  
Hwa Lee ◽  
Heljä Antola Crowe ◽  
Jana Lynn Hunzicker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Cultural Awareness ◽  
English Language ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Credit Hours ◽  
Ell Students ◽  
Course Work

Bradley University's embedded English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement program was first implemented during the 2015-2016 academic year. This program consists of eighteen credit hours of course work specified by the Illinois State Board of Education in order to prepare teachers to work with students who do not speak English as their first language. Now in its second year, early outcomes of the program are quite positive. This chapter describes the program and its development in detail, and analyzes the program's strengths and weaknesses, focusing especially on teacher candidates' knowledge of pedagogy and cultural awareness as it relates to social justice in education for English language learner (ELL) students. The chapter concludes with recommendations for programming and future research.

English Language Learners and School Belonging: Implications for School Counselor Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1b) ◽  
pp. 2156759X1983444
Author(s):  
Qi Shi ◽  
Jennifer Watkinson
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Academic Success ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
School Counselor ◽  
English Language ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
School Belonging ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Student Needs ◽  
Ell Students

Using an evidence-based framework in a mixed-method study, we examined the needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) in a middle school in the eastern United States and identified strategic intervention approaches to enhance ELL students’ sense of school belonging to promote academic success. We illustrate how describing a problem as part of an evidence-based framework can lead to a targeted intervention for ELLs. When describing the problem, we considered intersectional social identity factors of ELL students. Problem description revealed how ELLs perceived their relationships with teachers, how school personnel viewed ELL student needs, obstacles to meeting ELL student needs, and current solutions. Suggested interventions focus on a culturally responsive bibliotherapy approach.

scholarly journals Helping Preservice Content-Area Teachers Relate to English Language Learners: An Investigation of Attitudes and Beliefs

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleni Pappamihiel
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Immigrant Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Content Area ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs ◽  
Content Area Teachers ◽  
Safe Learning Environment

In the United States and Canada, as in many other countries, it has become common for teachers not specifically trained in English as a second language (ESL) to have immigrant and minority language students in their classrooms. These students, who are generally learning English along with the culture of their new countries, present many challenges for their teachers, who are often not appropriately trained to meet their needs. Often teachers of mathematics, science, and other content-area courses feel less than prepared for these students and lack the skills needed to accommodate instruction to their unique needs. In addition, these same teachers often harbor attitudes and beliefs about immigrant students that are not conducive to the development of a safe learning environment and are difficult to alter. This article describes how a community-based service-learning project (CBSL) was used to begin to investigate the attitudes and beliefs of preservice content-area teachers toward English language learners (ELLs). In this study many participants exhibited some level of change in their attitudes about working with ELLs.

scholarly journals Teaching Disciplinary Literacy to Adolescent English Language Learners: Vocabulary Development and Reading within the Disciplines

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingling Lou
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
English Language ◽  
Vocabulary Development ◽  
Disciplinary Literacy ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Literacy Teachers ◽  
Ell Students ◽  
Diverse Learning

Recent research on disciplinary literacy has called for a paradigm shift among secondary content teachers from perceiving themselves as disciplinary content transmitters to disciplinary literacy teachers who model and engage students in reading, writing, inquiring, and doing like experts within each discipline. How do content teachers incorporate disciplinary literacy and stay responsive to the unique and diverse learning needs of the adolescent English Language Learners (ELLs) who are integrated in the mainstream classes? Drawing on Moje’s (2015) 4Es framework and a translanguaging pedagogy, this paper presents a set of instructional practices to support content teachers in integrating disciplinary literacy within the disciplines to enhance adolescent ELL students’ learning in vocabulary development and reading. La recherche récente en matière de littératie dans toutes les disciplines appelle à un changement de paradigme chez les enseignants des différentes matières du secondaire pour se percevoir non plus comme des transmetteurs de contenu de la discipline mais comme des enseignants de littératie de la discipline qui servent de modèles et motivent les élèves à lire, écrire, se renseigner et à se comporter comme des experts à l’intérieur de chaque discipline. Comment les enseignants de contenu incorporent-ils la littératie dans leur discipline et restent-ils à l’écoute des besoins d’apprentissage uniques et variés des adolescents qui apprennent l’anglais (AALS) et qui sont intégrés dans les classes ordinaires? En s’appuyant sur le cadre 4E de Moje (2015) et sur une pédagogie translangagière, cet article présente une série de pratiques d’enseignement visant à soutenir les enseignants de contenu dans l’intégration de la littératie dans toutes les disciplines de façon à enrichir l’apprentissage des adolescents ASL en matière de développement du vocabulaire et de lecture.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document