Academic Socialization : Differences And Challenges

English language learners (ELL) are one of the fastest growing classifications of students attending schools in the United States today. They represent a diverse group of students typically coming from homes or backgrounds where English is not the primary language spoken. Additionally, ELL students experience difficulties communicating or learning academic instruction in English.

As our nation shifts towards a more culturally diverse population both educators and families have to find a common ground to ensure that English Language Learners are academically successful. All stakeholders must carefully consider the social cultural impact on an ELL education. The process of raising bilingual learners take more than a language a school and a language learned at home. The transition must have a purpose and a goal.

The fact that ELL student’s are given the exact same educational services provided to native English speaker, seem to be very unfair for the ELL student’s and instead of helping the ELL students to succeed academically we are preventing them from succeeding in their classes. When I was reading this section I couldn’t stop thinking about the video that we saw in class, the student was very smart but the fact that he couldn’t understand the material being taught, this was preventing him from showing how brilliant and smart he is. Just imagine how many brilliant ELL students can’t succeed in class because they don’t understand the language of the instruction.

The school system do not take in consideration that ELL students not only have a language barrier that prevent them from performing on the standardized tests, but that they are transitioning from a completely different learning environment. ELL students are also classified as poor academic performers because of their language barrier. This language barrier explain the academic achievement gaps between ELL students and native english-speaking students. The test scores are not sufficient proof to argue that ELL students have a gap in academic achievement. This is questionable to the validity of the standardized tests on ELL students.(Youth)

It is essential to understand English language learners’ needs because ELL students face the combined challenge of learning all the academic content as other students, while also learning the language of instruction. With the rapid growth in the size of the ELL student population in the U.S., teachers who are effective recognizes ELL students unique academic needs, unique background experience, culture, language, personality, interests and attitudes toward learning for the purpose to adjust, or differentiate, their instruction to meet students’ needs.

Despite having researched the educational challenges ESOL students face, it was only by actively engaging with students that I came to understand the disjunction between the resources available and the requirements for progress in the educational system. ESOL students, lacking familial support and economic resources, are deterred from advancing in their efforts to learn English, thus leading them to become discouraged and

I decided to review an article by Martha J. Strickland titled, Storylines: Listening to Immigrant Students, Teachers, and Cultural-Bridge Persons Making Sense of Classroom Interactions. I found the article in National University’s library. This article describes a study in which “storylines” is used to capture and analyze how newly arrived immigrant students in U. S. classrooms make meaning of lessons with limited English and how their teachers, without prior experience with the cultures of these students, manage to educate them. Pursuing understanding (knowledge construction) of academic content is a multicultural education dimension.

It has been estimated that by the year 2025, approximately one out of every public school student will be identified as an ESL/ELL student in the United States. ESL stands for English as a Second Language and ELL stands for English Language Learner. An ESL/ELL student can be defined as a student whose predominant language or languages at home, is other than English, and would require additional English language support to develop reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The difference between an ESL student and ELL student is minor; An ESL student participates in programs that are customarily specialized while an ELL student partakes in a traditional educational classroom. English Language Learners have surpassed other subgroups in becoming the fastest growing of the public school population. Despite the common misjudgement of some people towards the ESL/ELL population, 76% of the ESL/ELL students in elementary schools and 56% of the ESL/ELL students in secondary schools are native-born. The highest percentages of ELL/ESL students in public schools are found in the west of the United States. Taking the average of both bigger and smaller cities, ELL students make an average of 14% of the total public school enrollment and in suburban areas, ELL students make up an average of 8.5% of public school enrollment. The ESL/ELL population has more than doubled over the past 15 years and more than half of those students struggle with their academic performance. An ESL/ELL

In recent decades, the United States has seen a dramatic increase in the diverse population, especially with English-language learners in the education system. English-language learners are students who are unable to communicate fluently or learn effectively in English. These students come from a non-English speaking home or background and require specialized instruction in the English language and their academic courses. Educators use a number of terms when referring to English-language learners, limited English proficient (LEP) students, non-native English speakers, language-minority students, and either bilingual students or emerging bilingual students (York, 2008). As

The SUNY is a diverse university which has around 43% of minority students, including Hispanic/Latino, Black or African American, Asian/ Pacific Islander, ESL, and international students. Those students often encounter difficulties in English listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and understanding the Western academic culture, especially for ESL and international students. Since I received the professional training in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) in the Master’s and Ph.D. programs at the Ohio State University and have English teaching experience to diverse learners in EFL and ESL settings for around 9 years, I would like to help those minority students at the SUNY Oneota understand the Western academic culture, overcome academic difficulties they encounter, and improve their overall English competence. Helping those minority students is my short-term career goal. My long-term career goal is to increase K-12 content and ESL teachers’ and

The language and cultural barrier between Mrs. Stewart and Anna would be a difficult obstacle but one that could be overcome with modifications and adaptations. Although Mrs. Stewart has many years of experience, this would be her first time having ELL student. This will require for her to learn about Anna’s diverse background, her culture and linguistic experiences, since research has proven that“just good teaching” is not enough.

The mere reference to the label given to students acquiring the English language potentially sparks debate amongst educators, policy makers and researchers. The federal government refers to these students as Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. This identification references the deficiencies the student may have rather than to identify the diversity and gifts that the student may possess. Such labels set premature limitations of the student and predisposes the student to limited rigor in instruction. Educators and researchers reference the same subgroup of students as ELLs, establishing the understanding that with sufficient support, increased rigor and cultural understanding, students will succeed.

The article Principles and Practices of Sociocultural Assessment: Foundations for Effective Strategies for Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, is written to inform the readers about different types of practices that teachers can take into action when working with ESL students. In this article, it mentions how different principals help to accommodate the ESL students. One of the principals that was mentioned was is that learning is social. In the article, it was mentioned that learning is social because it helps students to understand and use interaction with others to share meaning in a social setting (Smith, Teemant, & Pinnegar, 2004, P. 39). In the article, another principal that helps ESL students is that teaching is assisting. The meaning

Bilingual” (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). The objective of the ESL students is to learn how to speak, read, and write in English and know about the system of the school too. That learning will help them with other courses in school. ESL students have come from all over the world in America to study. Statistically, the number of immigrants in the USA is growing quickly. This quote shows us that

The rapid spread of English has inspired many scholars to look into the probability of shifting from traditional ENL (English as a native language) pedagogy in ELT to EIL (English as an International Language (Jenkins 2009; Kirkpatrik 2007; Sharifian, 2009, Matsuda 2012, McKay, 2012). Taken together, the goal of teaching English today from an EIL perspective is to prepare the learners to use English to become part of the globalized world, which is linguistically and culturally various, and thus both teachers and EIL courses should prepare learners for such diversity and to represent English as a pluralistic and dynamic component rather than a monolithic and static one. Traditionally, curriculum developers have presumed that American or British English should be the target language in ESL/EFL curriculum. The emergence of other possible models happened when Kachru (1985, 1986) distinguished among three circles of English. According to Kachru (1986), these circles set up “three distinct types of speech fellowships of English, phases of the spread of the language, and particular characteristics of the uses of the language and of its acquisition and linguistic innovations” (p.122). As McKay (2012, p.10) puts it “traditionally L2 pedagogy and research have been dominated by the assumption that the goal of bilingual users of English is to achieve native-like competence in English. However, for those individuals who use English essentially as a language of wider communication