The world in a classroom

Teachers and students learning together
across languages and cultures

by Suzy Frisch

A teenage girl from Somalia recently started her first day at Armstrong High School in the Robbinsdale School District, where her teachers were surprised to learn that she had never stepped foot in a school before. Not only did she speak little English, she was lacking the basics on how to function in school. She didn’t know how to use a pencil or which way to hold a book, and she certainly couldn’t read or write in either her native language of Somali or in English.

While that’s an extreme example, Jennifer Leazer, an English as a second language (ESL) teacher at the school, says that many more students from other countries are enrolling at Armstrong who have had very little formal education. The students are coming to the United States from war-torn countries like Somalia or refugee camps in Thailand, and they just never had the opportunity to go to school. Or they went to school, but it was in a makeshift classroom with hundreds of other children being taught by one teacher.

“What really strikes us teachers is not the increase in numbers of students but the increase in their needs,” says Leazer, who earned a postbaccalaureate initial licensure from the college in 2001. “We’re getting more students who missed a lot of their education because they have spent major portions of their lives in refugee camps. Even students who are coming from a country that is not at war are coming from rural areas or impoverished areas. We are seeing a very low level of literacy and education in their first language. This is one of the main issues we have for English language learners.”

... researchers know that students who come to school already literate in their native language learn English better and more quickly ...

Armstrong’s situation is mirrored in schools across Minnesota and the nation. The number of students who are English language learners is increasing exponentially, and many of those students are entering the classroom with very little formal schooling. It’s an important distinction because researchers know that students who come to school already literate in their native language learn English better and more quickly, and they achieve more academically in American schools, says Diane Tedick, associate professor in second languages and cultures education in the college’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

The challenges in teaching someone English who is new to the country and helping them acclimate to American schools have always been present. But this recent pattern of students coming to school with limited formal education presents more uphill battles for both pupils and teachers. Students have to start from the beginning, learning the building blocks of reading or science or math while at the same time acquiring a new language, and teachers often have to instruct many students with different skill levels all in the same classroom.

Increase in ESL students across the state

At the same time, school districts have seen a steady increase in sheer numbers of non-native English speakers enter their classrooms. This is nothing new for urban districts like Minneapolis and St. Paul, where it is not unusual to have half of a school’s population be English language learners. But in suburban and rural school districts across Minnesota, schools are finding themselves devoting more classroom time and resources to this population as well.

Karla Stone, an ESL teacher at Plymouth Middle School in the Robbinsdale school district, has witnessed this trend firsthand during her 10 years with the district. “There has been a dramatic increase in the number of English language learners in the Robbinsdale district just as there has been statewide,” says Stone, who is earning a Ph.D. in second languages and cultures education from the college. “The district is also a good reflection of what is happening on the state level, with an increase in refugees. Many of them are coming with limited, if any, formal schooling and their issues tend to revolve as much around literacy as language acquisition.”

When Stone first started at her school in 1994, the bulk of the ESL students were from Vietnam and Russia. These days, Robbinsdale is seeing many more Spanish-speaking students, as well as an influx of pupils from Somalia and Liberia. While the Liberian students are native English speakers—though they speak a different dialect than American English—many come to the district not having had much formal education. The same goes for some other students in the district who were refugees from Southeast Asia or Eastern Africa.

Overall, this is a huge challenge for both ESL and grade-level teachers. Not only are they dealing with larger class sizes, but the students in their classes come to them with a wide range of skill levels. “Because of the numbers and the way classes are made up, the students with limited formal schooling are in classes with students who have higher literacy and lower language proficiency, and it becomes a challenge for the teacher to meet all of those needs in the classroom,” Stone says. “It’s never the same year-to-year or day-to-day, and you never know when someone new is going to show up.”

Unique class structures help

At Armstrong High School, the administration has tried to address the issue of students with limited formal schooling by offering some unique classes, Leazer says. For example, the school has a ninth grade science class for ESL students where a teacher instructs students in basic science concepts as well as introductory topics like the solar system or weather patterns. In general, students are taught by proficiency level, not grade level, and they work toward the same number of credits to graduate as any other student. That might mean that it takes some ESL students longer than four years to graduate.

To handle the range of student skill levels, Plymouth Middle School divides its ESL classes according to proficiency level. If there are enough teachers and classrooms, the students are divided by grade level, too. A typical class for Stone might have sixth- through eighth-graders, with a combination of Liberian students who speak English well but need assistance with reading and writing and other non-native speakers.

“It becomes challenging because sixth graders and eighth graders are very different on social and emotional levels,” she notes. “It’s more challenging to find topics that appeal to both ages of students in the class.”

Stone holds a master’s degree from the college in second languages and cultures. But not all teachers are as well prepared as she is for working with English language learners. In fact, most grade-level elementary school teachers or high school content teachers have very little formal education or training in teaching English language learners.

“The teachers who have these students for the vast majority of the school day really haven’t had a lot of preparation to work effectively with these students. They get frustrated because they don’t know what to do,” Tedick says. At the college most students preparing for licensure must take a one-credit course in strategies for working with English language learners, but it’s not required across departments. Tedick argues that even the one credit hour really isn’t enough.

What would happen if you got a group of schools together for a long-term sustained collaborative relationship?

Connie Walker, an associate professor in second languages and cultures education, was getting frustrated herself. School districts kept approaching professors in the college to provide short staff development sessions on how to teach English language learners. She just didn’t think it was an effective way to prepare teachers to work with non-native speakers. What if she could find a way to really make changes in the schools?

She wrote an application to the U.S. Department of Education for a program she created called “Team Up” and earned a five-year grant in 2002. “Team Up” is a collaborative field-based model for staff development of teachers and paraprofessionals who work with second language learners. The grant has two two-year cycles. This time, four elementary schools in the Anoka-Hennepin, Owatonna, and St. Paul school districts have developed teams of ESL teachers, grade-level teachers, and paraprofessionals from each school to create groundbreaking ways to collaborate and teach their non-native English speakers. The second two-year cycle will focus on high schools.

Start small and spread success

“My whole goal for writing the grant was to think small,” says Walker. “What would happen if you got a group of schools together for a long-term sustained collaborative relationship? We wanted them to develop an action plan for their school: What could they do to improve the achievement of ESL students? The goal is students demonstrating improved learning in the classroom.”

Fourth-grade teacher Jayne Jacobson leads the “Team Up” grant team at Wilson Elementary School in Owatonna. She wanted to get involved in devising new strategies for teaching English language learners after struggling herself and watching fellow teachers struggle with not having enough time or resources to help non-native speakers in the classroom. She saw a wide variety of skill level among the English language learners (ELL) at the school, and some just weren’t getting enough help during their 30 minutes of ESL class a day.

“I saw so much frustration, more than any other district I’ve taught in, because they [teachers] didn’t have enough time,” says Jacobson, who has taught at public schools in south Texas, Los Angeles, and St. Paul. “They see the ELL kids’ scores drop, see them fall behind, and they know it’s not working. We have to do something.”

The Spanish-speaking students were really buying into it and became more engaged in the classroom. We had someone who could speak their language and they knew there was someone they could go to for help, and they did. There was much more self-initiation.

The solution her team came up with was a pilot project Jacobson started last school year. As part of the pilot, the fourth grade Spanish-speaking students were clustered in her class, and a bilingual liaison joined her during social studies to interpret for those students. Of the 28 students in her classroom, 12 were Spanish speakers, and the liaison would either translate Jacobson’s instructions verbally into Spanish or would write notes on the board in Spanish if Jacobson was doing the same in English.

Jacobson was a bit concerned that her Spanish-speaking kids would feel stigmatized and that her native English speakers would be overwhelmed or feel left out. Fortunately, that was not the case. “It was hard at first. But at the end of the year the students told me, ‘This class rocks!’” she says. “The Spanish-speaking students were really buying into it and became more engaged in the classroom. We had someone who could speak their language and they knew there was someone they could go to for help, and they did. There was much more self-initiation.”

This school year, Jacobson will use her bilingual liaison during math lessons. Twelve of her 26 students will be Spanish speakers, and she also will have school materials in both English and Spanish. Additionally, Jacobson and the liaison will do more initial evaluation of students to determine how much schooling they have had and what skill level they are at, to better determine what they need from the teachers. “We’ve learned in the last couple of years that that’s really important,” she adds.

ESL and content teachers working together

This teamwork going on at Wilson between grade-level teachers, paraprofessionals, and ESL teachers couldn’t be more important, says Martha Bigelow, assistant professor in second languages and cultures education. Grade-level teachers need to develop ways to pass on their content in a way that English language learners can understand, while ESL teachers need to be more flexible in working closely with grade level teachers on content.

“Content teachers also need to consider themselves as someone who will be involved in developing the language ability of English language learners,” says Bigelow. “It’s not just the ESL teacher’s job to do that. English language learners are their students, too. They are responsible for making the content comprehensible to them, too.”

Jacobson has been really impressed with the results she’s achieved in the classroom through the “Team Up” grant, and she thinks the professors in second languages and cultures are onto something. “The idea is fabulous to engage teachers who have bought into the system, then nurture them, and further that cause in the district by using them as mentors,” she says. “They are creating leaders and experts in the field—change agents—and they are doing a great job with it.”