Teaching Practices for ESL Students By Ellen “ Aileen

The education of immigrant students, in the United States, up until the early 1970s, was one of “sink or swim” policy with students having to assimilate as quickly as possible with no language support or transitional period in their own native language. The Lau vs. Nichols (1974) court case was the landmark case that initiated the beginnings of English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms as well as bilingual education as it is today. Now, immigrant and non-English-speaking students are given the opportunity to spend time in a “sheltered” ESL classroom with intense English language instruction until they have adequate English language skills to survive in the regular mainstream classroom with English speakers. However, the duration and length of this period of “sheltered” ESL classroom instruction, allocated for English as Second Language learners, remains a source of debate and contention legislatively and philosophically in many states. Legislators, for example, in the state of Texas mandate that all ESL students take the state standardized TAKS test in their third year of arrival in the United States: the underlying assumption that second language acquisition only requires three years or less and that ESL students should be able to pass standardized tests on a comparable level as native English-speaking counterparts at the end of three years. Is three years a realistic amount of time for all ESL students to acquire a second language while concurrently meeting grade level competencies? Researchers like Cummins (1996) and other second-language acquisition theorists demonstrate that academic competency in a second language requires longer than a three-year period. While many ESL students quickly acquire “Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills” (BICS) before entering the mainstream classroom, they still need continuous English language support in order to achieve the higher “Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency” (CALPS) necessary to pass state standardized tests. Second-language acquisition theorists caution educators that higher second-language competency skills can take anywhere from five to eight years to attain realistically for any individual acquiring competency in a second language. There are many other variables like age of arrival in the United States and standard of education from home country that can further impact the speed and success of second-language acquisition for ESL students. The question remains: is three years an adequate length of time for a middle school or high school student to acquire English language mastery concurrently with grade level content knowledge and skills? Researchers say “no,” but state legislators in the state of Texas say “yes” by mandating a three-year English language acquisition period for immigrant students. What is the reality of everyday classroom experiences for ESL students under this new state mandate of three years? How equipped are regular classroom teachers, who are not ESL certified, to teach these students to pass state standardized content tests while still learning English language skills? Seeking answers to these questions was my impetus for conducting this investigation in one middle school in Texas. As principal investigator and researcher, I also sought to examine and witness for myself the everyday reality that immigrant students experience acquiring English language skills and maintaining grade level content knowledge during their initial three years in the United States.