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Deep Dive
Rubric for Recovery: ELs face more hurdles amid lost in-person learning
Schools are employing extra English development courses, individualized
support delivered to students' sidewalks and more to maintain progress.
Kara Arundel
Nov. 2, 2020
The shy girl learning to write, read and speak proficient English
blended in with her peers in Kristabel Regalado’s virtual class this
fall at Edward K. Downing Elementary School in Odessa, Texas. Regalado,
an English language teacher and multi-classroom leader, thought the
girl’s oral skills were strong, but the student was reluctant to answer
questions or initiate conversations in English.
Was the child, a native Spanish speaker, behind — or was she just
introverted? The virtual learning setting made it hard to determine, so
Regalado tested the girl’s reading skills and reviewed a variety of her
classwork. That’s when Regalado realized her performance level was
lower than she initially suspected.
The girl was placed with a group of students working on the same skill
level, and Regalado personalized her lessons to focus on specific
reading strategies, including decoding and constructing meaning from
reading passages. Now, three months into the school year, Regalado said
the student's self-assurance and competency in English has grown.
“I can see that she has made progress, and she is much more comfortable asking and answering questions,” Regalado said.
It is a small moment of victory that holds the potential of a big
reward — the student’s eventual exit from English learner status. As
educators like Regalado and others across the country refine or develop
new online or in-person strategies to support ELs in a school year like
none other, their confidence in helping students become proficient in
English is growing.
That wasn’t the case in the spring, when schools abruptly pivoted to
distance learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. EL students were —
and, in many cases, still are — disproportionately affected by extended
school closures, say educators and advocates.
Data shows even before the pandemic hit the U.S., non-English speaking
students were behind their English-proficient peers academically (see
chart below). They also are more likely to live in homes without
devices or reliable internet access, making it difficult to access
remote learning. Furthermore, many struggle with food insecurity,
unstable home environments or have working parents who are unable to
assist their children with remote learning during the school day.
Language barriers only compound these challenges, educators say.
The pandemic "is just exacerbating the existing challenges,” said Naomi
Hupert, a senior research scientist with the Education Development
Center and co-director of the Center for Children and Technology.
Nationwide, EL students account for about 10% of the total student
population. Spanish is the most common native language spoken by ELs,
but there are more than 400 languages represented in U.S. public
schools, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.
The number of unique native languages spoken by ELs can vary from
state-to-state and district-to-district. For example, five languages
are represented by ELs in Mississippi, compared to 225 in Pennsylvania,
Ed Department data shows.
While there are examples of innovative and inspiring approaches by
schools to continue language development programs and give EL students
access to the full academic curriculum, Hupert said roadblocks remain,
including the difficulty of adapting language development instruction
to online learning platforms — or in socially distanced in-person
classes where students' and teachers’ masks hide their lips and muffle
their voices. Spontaneous, peer-to-peer interactions and conversation
are also missing, she said.
“The informal opportunities to be exposed to English and to use it are slowly disappearing,” Hupert said.
Assessing proficiency
While providing language development instruction to English learners in
remote settings has been challenging, EL administrators say another
obstacle is the lack of valid, high-quality annual proficiency
assessments that can be proctored online.
Those annual assessments measure a student’s progress toward English
proficiency and can also help guide the individual placements and
supports each student needs to move toward complete proficiency, said
David Holbrook, executive director of the National Association of
English Learner Program Administrators.
Megan Alubicki Flick, the Connecticut Department of Education’s English
learner consultant and NAELPA’s president, said her state, like others,
is grappling with how to administer tests safely in-person and reliably
online. There are 44,000 ELs in Connecticut representing 160 native
languages. The value in the annual assessment is it directly influences
an individual student’s learning program and EL status, she said.
The annual assessments are federally required, though states have
flexibility to develop their own tests and testing timelines. Schools
must also conduct an initial assessment within 30 days after a new
student’s enrollment to determine if that child qualifies for EL
services.
Guidance released by the U.S. Department of Education in May said
schools may use temporary entrance procedures that allow for the
presumption of EL identification based on a home language survey and
rely on appropriate follow up, including discussions with students and
parents.
Although the department did allow state waivers to annual English
language proficiency assessments for the 2019-20 school year, states
should not expect the same flexibility this year, according to a Sept.
3 letter from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. A FAQ document recently
issued by the department's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
explains some state-level flexibility for accountability purposes
regarding the annual proficiency assessments. But, Holbrook said, the
document doesn't help districts and schools with the immediate issue of
identifying and serving EL students.
Many educators in districts with distance learning-only formats this
fall are so eager to measure the proficiency levels of EL students,
especially if end-of-year testing data is missing, they are inviting
small groups of EL students to take the assessments in-person.
That’s what Edward K. Downing Elementary School in Odessa, Texas, is
doing to get foundational scores to develop individual learning
programs, said Principal Marcos Lopez. "If we don’t have a benchmark
test, it’s like shooting in the dark. You don't know where you’re
aiming and you can’t see your target."
‘Whole other level of difficulty’
In addition to annual assessments, EL educators must expose
non-English-speaking students to language development instruction, as
well as to the full academic curriculum. Balancing language development
instruction and general content lessons in online learning formats is
an area of struggle for EL programs.
“This is a novel situation for all of us, and so we can’t really
utilize past best practices or research-based approaches to this
situation,” said Alubicki Flick. “Of course, we can apply
research-based strategies, but we don’t know exactly how things will
look for COVID-19 because we haven’t gone through this.”
Azusa Unified School District in Los Angeles County, California, is
attempting to meet this balance by inviting EL students to attend
language development classes 45 minutes before and after the regular
school day, which is all online, said school board member Xilonin
Cruz-Gonzalez.
The extra supports were created so EL students don’t miss instructional
time in their regular academic courses. The twice-a-day tutoring also
allows ELs who receive special education services to get extra help in
both English proficiency and special education interventions,
Cruz-Gonzalez said.
“They’ll be able to get that rich language when they’re in social
studies classes, when they’re in science classes, and that helps them
become more proficient in English than when it’s just focusing on the
grammar or mechanics of learning English,” Cruz-Gonzalez said.
The district also recently started bringing special education and
English learners back on to campuses for one-on-one assessments,
Cruz-Gonzalez said.
In Texas, despite Regalado’s ability to help her shy student make
progress, she said she’s having difficulty providing online small group
instruction for the various academic and language development levels
represented by her students.
“I don’t yet quite have a handle on how I can group those kids and
provide those effectively, the small group lessons,” Regalado said.
“It’s hard to level students and plan lessons to meet their needs
in-person, but doing it online adds a whole other level of difficulty.”
Resources and new ideas for EL educators
NAELPA is providing professional development opportunities, including
training and resources for general education teachers, on effective EL
strategies. The association is also studying what methods are working —
and not working — across the country, Holbrook said.
Several state education departments and other groups have issued
guidance to districts to support ELs during the pandemic. In Virginia,
for example, the Virginia Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages and the Virginia ESL Supervisors’ Association created a
resource bank for schools that includes coronavirus information in
multiple languages and lesson planning ideas.
Local, state and federal education systems are also providing more
training and resources to parents so they can better support their
child’s language development, both in their native language and English.
School districts in California are reporting an uptick in participation
of parents at virtual English learner advisory committee meetings at
the school and district levels because the adults can attend meetings
using their phones, computers or school-issued devices, said Martha
Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an advocacy
organization.
That’s a welcome trend, “Because now, parents are expected to play a bigger role,” Hernandez said.
Educators also are implementing new methods to reach their online
students. For example, Nisha Patel, an EL teacher at Lew Wallace School
107 in Indianapolis, tried to relate to her elementary-aged students by
remembering what it was like for her as a child learning English. The
native Gujarati speaker said she would have been sad if she couldn’t
have gone to school when she was young.
“It was difficult in the beginning but now we’re getting into a groove.”
Those thoughts propelled Patel to spend hours outside of the regular
school day last spring developing strategies to keep students
progressing. She would create and deliver in-person learning packets to
students who didn’t have devices, and for children who did have
devices, she would sit on the sidewalk outside of their homes to show
them how to navigate the learning platforms.
“I didn’t want them to fall behind,” Patel said.
Every child now has a device, and the school has welcomed students back
for in-person learning for those who choose that option. Patel teaches
students in-person and virtually. Teaching students in-person is much
easier, she said, but added her online teaching skills are much
stronger than in the spring.
“It was difficult in the beginning but now we’re getting into a groove,” she said.
Supporting progress, acknowledging challenges
All these efforts, however, still don’t erase the disproportionate
impact the novel coronavirus is having on ELs. At Edward K. Downing
Elementary School, one-third of Regalado’s students do not have home
internet access, though devices have been provided to all 800 students
in the Title I school. There is additional pressure on educators to
help families access basic needs, such as food, and to recover
students’ learning losses.
“After March, I absolutely know that our gaps got bigger, and bigger,
and bigger because some of [the students] didn’t have high-quality
school for five months,” Regalado said.
“As long as they are growing either a tiny bit or a lot ... the paramount part is that they keep moving forward and improving.”
Staff at Aycock Elementary School in Vance County, North Carolina, is
also concerned about learning gaps for EL students. The school is
trying to prioritize the needs of ELs by continuously scrutinizing data
about student proficiency and performance levels. A new online library
gives EL students greater access to books at their individual skill
levels and some students have progressed one or two reading levels,
said Casey Jackson, a multi-class leader at the school.
The school is also developing its master schedule for hybrid learning
around the learning needs of ELs and their teachers, as well as being
more intentional about collaborations between general education and EL
teachers, Jackson said.
Liliana Soto, an EL teacher at Aycock, said she’s been providing extra
tutoring time to help students make up missed assignments or get
additional supports for hard-to-understand concepts. The extra effort
and students’ progression in skills has caught the attention of the
subject teachers who have shared their praise with the students, Soto
said.
The EL teacher also uses a growth mindset, meaning she and students
measure progress by focusing on small, interim achievements rather than
a large end goal. “Although there are score goals to meet, for me, as
long as they are growing either a tiny bit or a lot, I consider the
paramount part is that they keep moving forward and improving,” Soto
said.
Like Soto, Regalado is optimistic about her efforts to help students progress during this unusual school year.
“We don’t have 50-plus years of research and pedagogy on best practices
for online learning, but good teachers will find a way to deliver
quality instruction even with a piece of chalk and a slate,” Regalado
said.
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