A Conversation: English Learners & the Common Core State - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A Conversation: English Learners & the Common Core State Standards

Lily Wong Fillmore • UC Berkeley Guadalupe Valdés • Stanford University Discussant: Judy Elliott • LAUSD 1

ELPS, ELPSA & the Common Core Standards

Work on developing English language proficiency standards (ELPS) that are aligned to the CCS is moving along quickly; The development of corresponding ELP assessments to be used for measuring student progress in the learning of English will soon follow, as required by Title III. The questions we will discuss today are concerned with the effect these assessments can have on instruction. Will English learners be given the instructional support they need to meet the new standards, or will they be left even further behind than they currently are? 2

Which “language standards” are we discussing?

The language standards that are part of the CCS are goals for all students. They cover the grammatical knowledge and skills educated people are expected to have and be guided by. The language proficiency standards that will form the basis for tests which will be used annually to assess the developing language skills and knowledge of English learners is another set of standards in play. What’s the relationship between the two?

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Language & literacy expectations in the CCSS

The goals of the CCSS literacy standards are broad and necessary: all students will read and comprehend complex texts across disciplines, and be ready to construct effective arguments and convey intricate and multifaceted information in writing. The language standards are narrower and dicier: they tend to focus

• n some features of language that can vary across language varieties,

and which are too often confused with proficiency standards. If the language standards, because they focus on correctness, become confused with proficiency standards, they can derail the language instruction English learners are provided. This is quite likely as past practice has shown, when progress by English learners is judged by grammatical accuracy and not by growth in communicative ability.

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What might this mean for English learners?

Will the CCSS curriculum be withheld from ELs until they are judged proficient in English by standards based assessment? Are the CCSS meant only for native speakers of English and the most advanced ELs? Will those who fall short of either set of language standards be

• ffered a watered down version of a CCSS curriculum on the

grounds that they do not meet the proficiency standards for the CCSS? Or will we provide students with emerging English proficiency the necessary instructional support to participate fully in a CCSS curriculum and acquire academic language skills they need at the same time?

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In this session...

We will expand on our concerns with these issues: how language assessment tends to drive language instruction, particularly when student test scores are taken as evidence of the success or failure of schools and programs; how language instruction becomes ineffective and counter- productive when standards are reduced to isolated but measurable component language skills & features; how we need to take a close look at how ELPS are being aligned to the CC standards to see if they make sense; consider the instructional support English learners need in order to handle the language and literacy demands of the CC standards.

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How has ELP assessment affected English instruction?

Take a look at what has happened to language instruction for ELs since Title III began requiring that their English proficiency be tested each year. NCLB required that a state’s ELPS be aligned with the state’s academic achievement standards, and that annual measurable objectives be specified for both sets of standards. The ELPS were required to cover both spoken & written language proficiency, and the result?

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Reductionism may be desirable in testing...

But not in teaching and learning! Especially not when the subject is language, which involves intricately interrelated systems of abstract and complex knowledge of structures and forms, the coordination of oral, aural, visual and intellectual mechanisms, and systems of social and pragmatic rules governing discourse and usage in cultural settings. The tendency is to teach bits and pieces of language (e.g., the possessive pronoun, regular past tense -ed, etc.) guided by a curricular framework that lays out a progression of forms and structural features, from simple to complex, that students need to learn. It is comforting to impose order to the seeming chaos that one encounters in thinking about linguistic knowledge. 8

An example––expressions

• f time & tense...

Stage 1a: “present” forms of simple verbs to refer to states and actions taking place in the here and now (walk, tag, kick, sit, run, rain, etc.), and for habitual activities. Stage 2: “progressive” forms of verbs are taught for ongoing actions (is/are walking, kicking, sitting, running, raining, etc.) Stage 3a: “regular past tense” forms of verbs are taught for actions that occurred in past time (walked, kicked, tagged, etc.) Stage 3b: “irregular past tense” forms (ran, sat, ate, etc.) Stage 4a: periphrastic future or intentional (be going to) Stage 4b: expression of “future” (will) 9

And so it goes...

• apple, apples
• see apple, bite apple
• one apple, one green apple
• saw apple, bit apple, ate apple
• apples are fruit
• apples grow on trees
• apple pie
• He is the apple of his

mother’s eye.

• An apple a day keeps the

doctor away.

• The apple is the pomaceous

fruit of the species Malus domestica, in the Rosaceae (rose) family. 10

A bottom up strategy for language instruction

Start with simple concepts, simple words, one to one relationships between forms and meaning, forms and grammatical functions. Have each small bit practiced until mastered, then move on to teach the next bit. The idea? Small bits learned systematically eventually add up to enough linguistic information to allow more complex patterns, structures, and functions to be learned.

Level 4 Level 2 Level 3 1

Advanced

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But is this the way language is actually learned?

A linear progression from simple to complex might make pedagogical sense, but does it make sense to the learner? Evidence suggests that it may not. Are English learners making better progress in English & in English literacy since Title III required SEAs and LEAs to improve English instruction for them? Why does it seem to take as long as it does for students to get reclassified? What about the growing ranks of long-term- English learners (“ESL-lifers”)? Is it a problem with the instruments used in assessing proficiency or with assumptions

• f how perfectly i’s should be

dotted and t’s crossed before students can reclassified?

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That approach presents a problem

• f access for language learners

It imposes tight restrictions on the English input available for learners to work on, especially when they are segregated into classes where everyone is an English learner (this presents a problem of “junky data” in language learning). Can learners end up with a full working grammar of English when evidence of how it works comes in the bits and pieces they are taught and freer data from learners like themselves?

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Compounding the problem of access...

Students who are classified as ELs are usually grouped for

• instruction. The instruction they are given is generally pitched at a

lower level than instruction provided for English proficient students. The texts used in such classes are usually less complex, less informative, and less demanding than those ordinarily used. As a result such texts rarely if ever provide any exposure to the kind of language students need to learn and use in carrying out academic work (more on this shortly); Less is asked and expected of students in such classes, and many of them lose hope in making academic progress, and sadly––their faith in their own ability to learn.

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The problem of progress is actually one of access...

The linguistic data ELs need

What’s taught Thing1 Thing2 Thing3 Thing4 etc.

Thing1 Thing2 Thing3 Thing4 etc.

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The need for access to data in language learning...

In order to learn any kind of language, learners must have access to data which allow them to discover not just its forms and structures, but more importantly, the principles by which forms and constructions are deployed and exploited in communication. The data must be true to the

• target. But what’s the target? Just

English? What kind of English? There are many kinds of English. If the target is the registers that are used to do work in schools, then the data must provide adequate and sufficient representation of the various types. The learner must take notice of relationships between forms, structures, meaning, and use. Children do not ordinarily do this, however, so they need help in attending to such information.

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How will ELs fare under the CCSS literacy program if language instruction stays the same as it is now? Their current performance on the NAEP reading test paints a bleak picture. ELs included in NAEP testing have had at least 3 years of English instruction prior to the year of testing. The 8th and 12th graders may have had many more than that! A recent study of ELs in CA high schools report that 57% are long-term English learners.

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10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Grade4 Grade8 Grade12

Below Basic Basic Proficient Advanced

71% ~ 32% 19% 78% ~ 3% 22% 75% ~ 26% 23%

How ELLs performed in 2009 NAEP Reading, Grades 4, 8, 12 by reading achievement level (NCES)

6% 2%

How are languages really learned?

The learning of language, unlike

• ther types of knowledge and

skills, is enabled by neural mechanisms which require certain types of inputs to work efficiently. The best examples of efficient language learning are children acquiring their primary language from family members, and it is done without obvious effort or instruction! Family members are guided, not by scope and sequence charts, but by their beliefs about how to interact with & communicate with children at various ages and stages of development. Children learn language quickly when they are steeped in meaningful discourse about experiences and ideas.

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With ample input & support for learning: a different progression

Language learning is driven by learners’ needs for understanding & communication; They attend to cues from the setting, the behavior of speakers, and try to make sense of things as relationships between forms and functions become salient. They get flashes of insight as to how things work as they gather more and more evidence. That’s how L1s are learned.

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The registers needed for academic work

With ample input & support for learning: a different progression

That’s also how English learners learn the English they need to get by socially at school. They pick it up by interacting with peers and teachers; How much they learn and how well it works for school can vary considerably (how well the peers know English, how well the setting supports interaction, etc.). That’s not all they have to learn–– they also need the range of registers and styles used to carry out academic work in English.

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The language demands of the CC Standards...

Although many types of texts will be used in an ELA curriculum under the CCS, priority is given to informational/expository texts in reading, and to argumentation and explanation in writing. Such texts make use of registers that are characterized by language forms, grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices that are quite different from those ordinarily used in non-academic oral communication––no student can make progress in school without acquiring a full range of oral and written registers. This is not new––with or without the CCSS––but by requiring more complex, rigorous text materials across the curriculum and at every grade level, there is a new urgency to support its development by all students, especially English learners.

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How are academic registers

• f language acquired?

The registers used to do academic work, unlike conversational language, are not learned by interacting with speakers, at least not by school age kids. They encounter it primarily in complex texts––written language whose purpose is to inform, report, argue, explain, or teach materials to the reader. Not all texts are written in such language, however. Texts written for younger children (up through grade 3), and the simplified texts written for language learners tend to avoid using the characteristic forms and structures of this register. ELD materials often claim to teach “academic language” forms, but they mostly focus on words that are sometimes used in academic

• writing. It is much more than that.

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Compare, for example, the 2 texts in your handout: both are biographical sketches of the American folk-hero, “Johnny Appleseed.”

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Biosketch #1: Johnny Appleseed

<www.weeklyreader.com>

A man named Johnny Appleseed lived long ago. His real name was John

• Chapman. Why did people call him

Johnny Appleseed? Let’s read the story to find out. Johnny Appleseed was born in

• Massachusetts. He walked west across

the country. He carried a sack of apple

• seeds. He planted seeds in Illinois,

Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Johnny did not have a home He made clothes from sacks, and he did not have shoes to wear. As a hat, he wore a tin cooking pot. In fact, he used the pot for cooking! Johnny Appleseed was a kind and gentle man. He was a friend to all the people he met. He was also a friend to animals. Sometimes he slept with them in their

• barn. Years later, many apple trees grew

from all the seeds Johnny had planted. People across the country had apples to eat. Johnny liked to tell people this story about his life. People have told the story about Johnny Appleseed for hundreds of

• years. So the next time you bite into an

apple, thank Johnny Appleseed.

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Bio-sketch #2: J. Appleseed

America’s Story, Library of Congress

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/revolut/jb_revolut_apple_1.html You've probably heard about the legendary

"Johnny Appleseed" who, according to story and song, spread his apple seeds all over the

• nation. Did you know there really was a "Johnny

Appleseed"? His name was Jonathan Chapman. Born in Massachusetts on September 26, 1775, Chapman earned his nickname because he planted small orchards and individual apple trees during his travels as he walked across 100,000 square miles of Midwestern wilderness and prairie. He was a genuine and dedicated professional nurseryman. In 1801, Chapman transported 16 bushels

• f apple seeds from western Pennsylvania down

the Ohio River. He had acquired more than 1,000 acres of farmland on which he developed apple orchards and nurseries. But he didn't just stay there. Chapman's work resembled that of a

• missionary. Each year, he traveled hundreds of

miles on foot wearing a coffee sack with holes cut out for arms and carrying a cooking pot, which he is said to have worn like a cap over his flowing hair. About 1830, Chapman also acquired land in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There, he planted a nursery that produced thousands of seedling apple trees that he sold, traded, and planted

• elsewhere. It's no wonder he became a

legendary figure with his cheerful, generous nature, his love of the wilderness, his gentleness with animals, his devotion to the Bible, his knowledge of medicinal herbs, his harmony with the Indians, and above all, his eccentric appearance. Fort Wayne still celebrates the life of "Johnny Appleseed" with a festival every September when apples are

• harvested. Next time you bite into an apple,

think of the man who spread wealth through apples, Jonathan Chapman, better known as "Johnny Appleseed."

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Which version would be more appropriate for English learners?

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Which is easier to follow? Which is more informative?

Text #1:

Mostly simple sentences. Cohesion by juxtaposition; unusual sequential use of name, pronoun references affects text coherence. Few markers indicating relationship of ideas between

• sentences. A feeling of non-

sequiturity. Each idea is foregrounded. No contexualizing detail––when did these events happen? No expansion or explanations.

Text #2:

Combination of complex & relatively simple sentences. Complex sentences connect related ideas, fore-grounding some, backgrounding others. Purpose––information flow. Follows chain of reference rules. Explanations, supporting information given for assertions. Inclusion of background information and details that give texture to the story. Situated in time and place.

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Critical difference: ACCESS to complex language itself

Features of the complex language used in this text (which give it its character):

informational density (many ideas packed into phrases, clauses, sentences.) devices for backgrounding information that may already be known to some readers; devices for foregrounding new and important information; The use of adverbial clauses & phrases to situate events in time and place, and relating contingent information: e.g., purpose, reasons, conditions, and causes.

Old or possibly known information (e.g., “You’ve probably heard about the legendary Johnny...”) fronted; new information or the most important events in narratives placed at the end

• f clauses (“spread his apple seeds...”).

E.g., “Chapman earned his nick- name because he planted small

• rchards and individual apple trees

during his travels as he...” E.g., sentence beginning “Born in Mass...” ending in “Midwestern wilderness and prairie.”

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What all students, including ELs, must have are compelling & complex grade appropriate texts that are fully aligned with the CCSS––but not without language support! And that’s across the curriculum, and not just in ELD, or ESL, or whatever!

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Simpler texts & language instruction (e.g., ESL)?

Probably required for older students as newcomers for one year–– but after that, instruction should focus on language in the context of subject matter learning. Teachers must support language learning not

• nly in ELA or ELD, but across the curriculum.

The most meaningful support is provided by teachers engaging students in instructional conversations in which they draw the students attention to the ways in which meaning relates to words, phrases, clauses in texts they are working on. The only way to learn the registers used to carry out academic work is through literacy, and only if students actually interact with complex texts in which it figures. Many students–– ELs especially––cannot do this without instructional support of the sort we are describing.

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Crucial to language learning: instructional support

Cooperation and support from more competent others in noticing the relationship between form and meaning, and help in gaining access to meaning in linguistic data. Children do not on their own notice the language used in texts––it is just so much background, like the paper the text is printed on. What they want is access to meaning; what they need is to discover how meaning relates to form! This is where teachers come in. Peers do not know enough about this kind of language to provide the support needed by learners! They can and do help solidify learning by talking with one another, however, as we shall see. 32

What does this instructional support look like?

I mentioned instructional conversations focused on the way language works in texts––a strategy teachers in NYC schools have been developing with me

• ver the past 4 or 5 years.

These conversations are anchored in instructional units in which students learn content through various activities, including reading informational texts and writing. We worked mostly on science and social studies topics, avoiding ELA initially, because the schools were nervous about making AYPs. Each day, teachers draw a sentence or two from the texts students are reading to feature in an instructional conversation they carry out with the students. The sentences they select are

• nes that are complex enough to

deserve attention and discussion.

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Want to see what this looks like?

In this video clip, a science teacher at a school in Queens works with a group of English

• learners. They are fourth

graders, but are just a couple of years into English. Teacher has broken the sentence down into phrases and clauses for discussion. Her questions draw student attention to each part in turn. The subject of this sentence is a complex noun phrase: “The wires behind your wall that carry electricity to lights and appliances.” In this video snippet, Teacher focuses on each part, getting the kids to see how each part contribute to the meaning of sentence. Notice what she does with the term, “appliances” which the students did not know.

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PS 218 Queens Chris Anderle, science teacher

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How much English can students learn this way?

A lot more language they can actually use in school than they might in instruction that focuses narrowly on teaching language structures and forms. And they learn more than just

• English. The students in the

many NYC schools getting such instruction learned to read and write, math, history, science,

• etc. through such experiences.

Over the past several years, schools in Beaverton, OR, and Denver have also begun working on English in this way. In Denver, for example, many schools have made developing the academic register of English a top priority, and teachers work on language across the curriculum. How is it working?

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To be useful, English has to be learned across subjects...

I recently observed a fifth grade math class at Goldrick Elementary School in southwest Denver. Students are Latinos (87%), Asians, Sudanese, Somalis, and Arabs. 68% of the students are ELs; the principal says 85% is a more accurate figure, even though many have FEP’ed out without having a strong enough grasp of the language of academic learning. The whole school, from preschool through the eighth grade, from the principal to the PE teacher is working on language development. The class I observed was working

• n problems on rate, distance, and

time, having completed a unit dealing with the measurement of two dimensional figures. The teacher asks the class to read the problem and to circle words

• r phrases they don’t understand.

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To do the math, students must read, analyze & interpret the text...

Jaime has to travel from his home

• n one side of a circular lake to

the store on the opposite side. He has his choice of canoeing to the other side of the lake at a speed of 4 mph or running on a trail along the bank of the lake at a speed of 7 mph. If the lake is 2 miles across, what method would be the most efficient, and why? 38

The students do, but only a few

• f them have circled any words....

Several of students circled “method” and some have circled “efficient”. In the discussion as to what these words meant in the context of this problem, teacher notes that the question asks, “What method would be the most efficient.” She reminds them that in PE, they had been studying the relationship between “efficiency of movement and performance.” “Oh, yeah!” The teacher’s task––to get the kids to see what the problem requires, by having them to visualize the situation described. An important clue is in the description of the lake as “circular.”

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To go beyond that...

The students had to realized that drawing a line from a point “on

• ne side of a circular lake to another on the opposite side” designated

the diameter of the circle, while “a trail along the bank of the (circular) lake” referred, however obliquely, to its circumference. The problems they had been working on, however, have been written in the consistent and well-behaved terminology of math. They had learned formulas for finding the area and circumference

• f circles, given its diameter, using pi. “Find the circumference of a

circle with the radius 3.” The problem they were working on, however, didn’t use any of the terms they had learned previously.

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Listen to the students as they discuss how to attack the problem. These English learners quickly realized that the concepts they had learned earlier were relevant to the situation described in this problem. It took them a little longer to realize they had formulas that could be applied to solving the problem!

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Goldrick Elementary School, Denver Teacher, Patricia Pluta

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So, what are our next steps?

As we move to implement CCS, there is much work to be done. We need to make certain that EL language proficiency standards reflect what we know about L2 acquisition:

L2 acquisition is not linear. Ultimate attainment will rarely be totally native-like especially in older students. In order to acquire an L2, students need access to rich written and oral language input, which must be true to the target.

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We need to remember that the CCS document specifically states:

“Each grade will include students who are still acquiring English. For those students, it is possible to meet the standards in reading, writing, speaking and listening without displaying native-like control of conventions and vocabulary.” (p. 6)

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That would mean that...

A student could meet the following listening and speaking standard at the fourth grade using English not entirely free of performance deviations:

Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts or relevant descriptive details to support main ideas or themes, speak clearly at an understandable pace.

A student could meet the following seventh grade writing standard using slightly imperfect English:

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to the task, purpose and the audience.

Students can meet such language and literacy goals without having attained perfect mastery of every details of English.

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The challenge for all of us, as we move forward...

To distinguish between the linguistic and the conceptual elements and demands of the standards; To keep separate the assumptions underlying the language standards’ progression (conventions of standard English, knowledge of English, vocabulary acquisition and use) from those underlying the integrated conceptualization of reading, writing, speaking, and listening development. 46

We leave you with these thoughts:

In working to enable ELs to meet the challenge of the CCSS, we must:

work together. share with each other what we have learned in our practice. find ways of decreasing the isolation of ELs in classrooms and schools. provide these students with access to challenging content and rich language.

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