From test scores to language use [electronic resource] : what English learners do in real-time academic communication in English
Keywords: Education.

Abstract Research and reports have established English learners' difficulties in meeting standardized test expectations (Fry, 2007; United States Department of Education, 2010), their high high-school dropout rates (California Department of Education, 2011) and challenges enrolling in advanced academic courses (Callahan, Wilkinson, & Muller, 2010). The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects are expected to be even more challenging for English learners than the previous generation standards (Goldenberg, 2013). As educators, researchers, and policymakers work to support English learners become fluent English proficient and be prepared for the CCSS expectations, they would benefit from a better understanding of what these young children can do with English in natural academic communication and what their English abilities may tell us about how far (or close) they are in meeting the new Standards expectations. I use six months of real-time English learner talk from English language arts, combined with observations and interviews from eight fourth grade English learners and their classroom teacher to examine how English learners use English to accomplish academic tasks in English Language Arts. Findings from paper 1 Findings from this dissertation show that the children in this study produced a total of 57 academic speech acts as they communicated with various interlocutors across a range of academic tasks. The most frequently occurring academic speech acts were acts used to demonstrate that the child was Following Along. There were no statistically significant differences in the academic speech acts produced by English learners identified as successful and struggling in English language arts. Findings from paper 2 Focusing on two academic speech acts particularly salient in the CCSS, explanations and descriptions, showed that while the children were able to explain and describe, explanations and descriptions with the classroom teacher rarely occurred. When explanations and descriptions did occur, they lacked richness. Furthermore, attempts by the classroom teacher to scaffold English learner explanations and descriptions were at times unsuccessful. Findings from paper 3 Given English learners' well-documented academic difficulties, I analyzed how English learners sought and received help from peers. The young children in this study used more general requests (78) than specific requests (32) when seeking help from peers. Peers responded to English learners' help seeking requests in the following ways: providing no response, refusing to help, providing a non-content response, answering part or all of the question, and providing an elaborated response with more information than simply an answer to the question. Out of the 110 attempts to seek help from peers during English language arts, less than half (41%) were successful in eliciting a helpful peer response. Analyzing peer responses by general and specific requests shows that there was no significant difference in how peers responded according to general and specific requests.