“Second language learners are much like plants. They require constant attention to make sure they are getting the right amounts of the ingredients that will help them grow and improve as learners.”
(Anderson, 1999)
Rationale
Immigrant families make up nearly 20 percent of the population in Canada, and over 72 percent of these families speak a mother tongue other than English or French (Statistics Canada, 2012). This number is expected to grow, and by 2020 Calgary has a projected immigrant population of half a million (Statistics Canada, 2012). Many of the children who attend our public schools will be from these families. They often require specific language instruction in order to successfully navigate our education system.
In 2010, the Alberta Government published the Inspiring Action on Education initiative, which created a “more inclusive education system for those with diverse learning needs”, including ELL students (Alberta Education, 2010). With this push for inclusive education, a greater number of schools will be integrating ELL students into their classroom. For this reason, more teachers will need to be equipped to give these students the best education possible and know how to address many diverse learning needs in their classroom in a practical way.
As ELL Specialists, we will be responsible for meeting the needs of these students. We found the question of supporting students in the mainstream classroom especially compelling because many ELL Specialists find themselves in this mainstream classroom setting, as we witnessed in our practicum placements last semester. However, even if we do find ourselves in an ELL-only class, as specialists we will likely be giving advice to teachers who approach us with questions of how to support ELL students in their mainstream classroom. It is important for us to know how to address these questions with advice that is not only practical, but supported by research and rooted in theory. Therefore, the guiding question of our inquiry is: how do we support English Language Learners in the mainstream classroom?
After looking into the research on EL Learning in the mainstream classroom, we have decided to divide our response into three components: what happens before the student enters the classroom and begins learning (environment), what happens during the learning (teaching strategies), and what happens after the learning (assessment). Our aim was to make this research-driven, yet as practical as possible for teachers in mainstream classrooms looking to support their ELL students.
Immigrant families make up nearly 20 percent of the population in Canada, and over 72 percent of these families speak a mother tongue other than English or French (Statistics Canada, 2012). This number is expected to grow, and by 2020 Calgary has a projected immigrant population of half a million (Statistics Canada, 2012). Many of the children who attend our public schools will be from these families. They often require specific language instruction in order to successfully navigate our education system.
In 2010, the Alberta Government published the Inspiring Action on Education initiative, which created a “more inclusive education system for those with diverse learning needs”, including ELL students (Alberta Education, 2010). With this push for inclusive education, a greater number of schools will be integrating ELL students into their classroom. For this reason, more teachers will need to be equipped to give these students the best education possible and know how to address many diverse learning needs in their classroom in a practical way.
As ELL Specialists, we will be responsible for meeting the needs of these students. We found the question of supporting students in the mainstream classroom especially compelling because many ELL Specialists find themselves in this mainstream classroom setting, as we witnessed in our practicum placements last semester. However, even if we do find ourselves in an ELL-only class, as specialists we will likely be giving advice to teachers who approach us with questions of how to support ELL students in their mainstream classroom. It is important for us to know how to address these questions with advice that is not only practical, but supported by research and rooted in theory. Therefore, the guiding question of our inquiry is: how do we support English Language Learners in the mainstream classroom?
After looking into the research on EL Learning in the mainstream classroom, we have decided to divide our response into three components: what happens before the student enters the classroom and begins learning (environment), what happens during the learning (teaching strategies), and what happens after the learning (assessment). Our aim was to make this research-driven, yet as practical as possible for teachers in mainstream classrooms looking to support their ELL students.
Further Questions
Soon after we began this inquiry, we realized that we had picked a very broad topic, and that this would require effort far beyond what was required for this assignment. However, we decided to continue with the inquiry because we were compelled by topic and felt that it had a strong rationale and made a worthwhile study. Instead of trying to fully explore this topic, we limited ourselves to three sub-topics: environment, teaching strategies, and assessment. This left a number of ‘unanswered’ questions relating to ELLs in the mainstream classroom. The questions we were left with after our research into this topic include:
Soon after we began this inquiry, we realized that we had picked a very broad topic, and that this would require effort far beyond what was required for this assignment. However, we decided to continue with the inquiry because we were compelled by topic and felt that it had a strong rationale and made a worthwhile study. Instead of trying to fully explore this topic, we limited ourselves to three sub-topics: environment, teaching strategies, and assessment. This left a number of ‘unanswered’ questions relating to ELLs in the mainstream classroom. The questions we were left with after our research into this topic include:
- How do we make a reluctant speaker participate in group work?
- Why are small groups more effective than larger ones?
- What are specific reading and writing strategies for students at Preproduction stage?
- What does the latest research say about first language inclusion in the classroom?
- How effective are multilingual books for ELLs in the mainstream classroom?
- How can we best engage with parents of our ELL students?
- What are the most effective ways to bring the culture of our ELL students into the classroom? How beneficial is this for our ELL students?
References
Alberta Education. 2010. Inspiring education. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/site/eduilebanff/48763522.pdf
Anderson, N. (1999). Activate prior knowledge. In Exploring second language reading: Issues and strategies (pp. 9-19). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Statistics Canada. 2012. Visual Census. 2011 Census. Ottawa. Released October 24, 2012. Accessed October 3, 2016. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/vc-rv/index.cfm?Lang=ENG&TOPIC_ID=4&GEOCODE=825
Alberta Education. 2010. Inspiring education. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/site/eduilebanff/48763522.pdf
Anderson, N. (1999). Activate prior knowledge. In Exploring second language reading: Issues and strategies (pp. 9-19). Boston: Heinle and Heinle.
Statistics Canada. 2012. Visual Census. 2011 Census. Ottawa. Released October 24, 2012. Accessed October 3, 2016. http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/dp-pd/vc-rv/index.cfm?Lang=ENG&TOPIC_ID=4&GEOCODE=825