The Title III English Language Acquisition State Grants program is designed to improve the education of English Learners (ELs) by helping them learn English and meet challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards.  Under the 2001 reauthorization of the *Elementary and Secondary Education Act* (*ESEA*), Title III requires states to develop or adopt English Language Proficiency (ELP) standards, implement assessments aligned to those standards, and leverage accountability mechanisms to identify programs that are not effective in supporting English learners’ (ELs) language acquisition. This report focuses on the first of these three requirements, surveying the degree to which states’ ELP standards define expectations for English language proficiency across language domains and grade levels, and provide a basis for curriculum, instruction and assessment to support ELs’ English language proficiency and attainment of academic content standards. 

# Research Questions 

1. Are states’ ELP standards structured to address expectations from kindergarten through grade 12 in each of the reading, writing, speaking and listening domains, as required under ESEA?

2. How are states’ ELP standards designed to support the achievement of academic standards, as required under ESEA?

3. How do states’ ELP standards reflect the principles of academic English language acquisition?

4. How accessible are states’ ELP standards to educators for curriculum and assessment development?

# Study Design

With the use of a survey protocol, English learner experts examined and rated ELP standards used by all states and the District of Columbia during the 2008-09 school year.   In total, the study describes 32 sets of standards: the state-specific standards used in 31 states and the set of ELP standards developed by the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment Consortium (WIDA) used in 20 states.  The survey did not include direct consideration of states’ academic content standards, or any evaluation of the quality of alignment between states’ ELP standards and their academic content standards.

**Highlights**

· Twenty-eight of the 32 sets of ELP standards were structured to address grade-level or grade-cluster expectations from kindergarten through grade 12 in each of the reading, writing, speaking and listening domains.

· Nineteen of the 32 sets of ELP standards included explicit references to the state’s academic content areas or standards in at least one content area. 

· Twenty-nine sets of ELP standards made at least occasional reference (two or more times) to at least one of the four essential linguistic components of academic language identified for this study – the phonological, lexical, grammatical, and functional component. 

· Six sets of standards (representing 25 states) provided support to aid educators in the form of specific instructional suggestions.

# Structure of States’ ELP Standards 

**Twenty-eight of the 32 sets of ELP standards were organized by individual grades or small clusters of grades, and all but two made reference to the four language domains of listening, speaking, reading and writing.**

The *ESEA* requires states to establish ELP standards for kindergarten through grade 12 that reflect the four language domains of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Nearly all sets of ELP standards met these requirements. Most sets of ELP standards (22) were organized by grade clusters, and 20 sets were organized into separate sections for each of the language domains.

All states also met the requirement to establish at least three proficiency levels within their ELP standards. Twenty-seven sets of ELP standards (used in 46 states) had more than three proficiency levels.

# References to Support Achievement of Academic Standards

**Nineteen sets of ELP standards included at least some explicit references to academic content areas. Four sets of standards, including those developed by WIDA, emphasized academic English language proficiency across three or more academic content areas**.

States are required to ensure that ELP standards include a specific focus on the type and level of language that ELs need to meet expectations defined in the state’s academic standards. While surveying the alignment of ELP standards with academic content standards for each state was beyond the scope of this study, researchers determined whether each set of ELP standards referenced each of four academic content areas.

Among the 19 sets of standards that referenced academic content areas, all included references to English language arts, 11 referenced mathematics, and 9 referenced science. Four sets of ELP standards also included references to social studies and history content. 

# Recognition of the Principles of Academic English Language Acquisition 

**Twenty-nine sets of ELP standards made at least occasional reference (two or more times) to at least one of the four essential linguistic components of academic language identified for this study – the phonological, lexical, grammatical, and functional component.**

The reauthorized *ESEA* focused expectations for English language acquisition on academic ELP rather than on general English language skills. The study, therefore, identifies the principles of English language acquisition that would enable ELs to meaningfully participate in academic environments and be successful in college and careers, and identifies references to these principles in states’ ELP standards.

Of the four essential linguistic components identified for this study, the grammatical component was the most common one of the four to be included in the ELP standards; 29 sets of standards included at least occasional references to the grammatical component.  The remaining three sets of standards made only rare references to this component of academic English.

Twenty-six of the 32 sets of ELP standards explicitly recognized that language varies across situations and purposes. However, only four sets of ELP standards emphasized academic English over ordinary English with equal emphasis across three or more academic content areas.  Two sets of ELP standards did not explicitly address academic language.

# ELP Standards and the language Learning Process 

**Six sets of ELP standards, representing 25 states, provided at least some specific suggestions for activities that teachers can use in their classrooms to address ELP standards**.  For example, one state’s standards presented specific suggestions for demonstrating concepts of print in grade 1, including activities appropriate for use with students at each of five levels of proficiency.

**ELP standards in 11 states (including 5 WIDA states) incorporated moderate or consistent attention to cultural aspects of second language acquisition.**When ELs learn English, they are also learning about and engaging in the culture in which English is spoken.  Recognizing this relationship between culture and language learning may help teachers to overcome instructional obstacles, such as a child’s unwillingness to ask questions of a teacher because such behavior, accepted and expected in most U.S. classrooms, would be considered inappropriate in the child’s native culture. 

# Study Limitations

This survey did not include direct consideration of states’ academic content standards, or any evaluation of the quality of alignment between states’ ELP standards and their academic content standards.  The survey did not address any aspect of implementation of standards.  Finally, the study was designed to be a broad descriptive survey that could be followed up with more in-depth research.