Informative Essay on English Language Learners

Informative Essay
English Language Learners

Imagine, you are sitting in a classroom looking at the teacher watching his or her mouth move but you have no idea what is being said. You try to piece together little words or phrases here and there but cannot come up with the right idea on your own. This is the case for many English Language Learners within classrooms today; the only difference is many do not even know enough English to piece together a phrase leaving them completely clueless. The controversial discussion of English Language Learners and their education can become quite heated. There is much discussion on these students and countless action plans, that we tend to forget this issue cannot only be talked about, but needs to be dealt with in the best way possible addressing all of the problems and providing ways to fix them. Two of the major ideas are English Immersion and Bilingual Education; both sides bring valuable solutions to the table, but I personally find myself torn on which will most benefit the ELL students. I have decided to look at both possible solutions, increase ones knowledge about these students education, and provide a good basis of information about the overall subject of English Language Learning.
In English immersion, the main focus is for ELL students’ to gain their education solely through the English language. All instruction provided for their education is in English and students are spoken to and expected to speak in English. It is often referred to as the “sink or swim” approach in that it does not provide the ELL students with the amount of needed help to
engage them further into their education. The students both understand the language and continue to grow with it, or become loosed at the idea and “sink”. Students spend so much time learning how to speak the language, that there is rarely enough time spent on learning about the English grammar piece of the language. In Robert Slavin and Alan Cheung’s article on “Language of Reading Instruction for English Language Learners”, immersion strategies say, “English language learners are expected to learn in English from the beginning, and their native language plays little or no role in daily reading lessons… Immersion may involve placing English language learners immediately in classes containing English monolingual children, or it may involve teaching ELL’s in a separate class for some time until the children are ready to be mainstreamed” (Slavin & Cheung 250). In this approach, students are taught in English; their native language takes a back seat in order to become strong English speakers. Learning English while speaking another language can slow the progress when learning the language. The less time students spend speaking their native language, the more successful this approach will be to their success in learning English.
By immerging the ELL’s in the classroom, they are able to further their education in the English language and decrease their chances of losing the little knowledge they have about the language to begin with. In another article titled, “The Case for Structured English Immersion”, by Kevin Clark, a writer for Educational Leadership, mentions that these immersion programs have the potential to improve the “English language development and linguistic preparation for grade level content…ELL students reach an intermediate level of English competence after a few years- and then stop making progress… they lag in their ability to apply the rules, structures, and specialized vocabularies of English necessary for grade level work” (Clark 43). ELL students
are able to continue and learn the basics of the English language at each grade level so they are learning the English grammar piece as well as being taught in the language.
It can be argued that teaching the ELL students entirely in English and not using their native language to help guide them will create a problem; putting them behind other students of their grade level and ultimately setting the student back further grade level wise in the future. Often times, in English Immersion, students are corrected from their teachers in English instead of correcting themselves which, “deny the speaker the opportunity to do self-repair, probably an important learning activity… instruction that emphasizes self-repair in this way was more likely to improve learners; ability to monitor their own target language speech” (Lyster 2). Although immersing students into an English speaking classroom may in some cases benefit the student, it cannot be ignored that total instruction in English is harmful to the students learning. As with any student, when a teacher catches them making a mistake, they are corrected; with ELLs however, when they make a mistake, they cannot be held to that same standard due to their little knowledge of the English language to begin with. If they are told the correction in English, often times the student will memorize the correction and not the reasoning behind it. It is unfair for us to ask ELLs to self-instruct themselves through something they know little about. ELLs need to be given special treatment in this case and by only giving instruction in English, they fall behind and become lost in their studies.
Bilingual Education is another approach that has been discussed when it comes to the education of the ELL students within schools today. The largest difference in this approach from English Immersion is that the ELLs are allowed to continue learning in their native language;
they use their language to help them translate English concepts, and are eventually transitioned into learning entirely in English when they have mastered the text instead of immediately starting their learning with the English language. Bilingual Education, “gives English language learners significant amounts of instruction in reading and/or other subjects in their native language…they are taught to read entirely in their native language through primary grades; they transition to English reading instruction somewhere between the second and fourth grades” (Slavin & Cheung 250). These programs show respect for the student’s native language rather than create ways to rid them of it and replace it solely with English. This approach is more open to the students transitioning process in becoming a bilingual young adult and transitions students at their own pace as opposed to being thrown into an English speaking classroom only.
Among the Bilingual Education programs, a small and growing number of schools have adopted the idea of two-way bilingual immersion programs. These programs put ELLs in the classroom with fluent English speaking students then combined, the students are taught to be bilingual; both English speaking and non English speaking students. April Linton explains that, “immersion education is not unique to the US, but as it requires a population of students (1) who come from two different home-language backgrounds, and (2) whose parents want them to learn the ‘other’ language,” (Linton 111). Because of the growing number of the Latino population in the US, there is a rising desire for bilingualism throughout the country. This is an effort for both English and non English speaking students to gain more knowledge about one another and place them on the same level of learning instead of ELLs being the group that is singled out to learn a different language. It also, “holds great promise as a strategy for diminishing – if not closing- the achievement gap… it enhances cognitive, linguistic, and cross-cultural skills” (Linton 112).
Two-way bilingual immersion allows all students to equally gain the knowledge they need to
succeed while giving all the same challenges of learning a different language. In doing so, all students are subject to similar struggles so not one specific group of students is pinpointed and English is not scene as the only proper language spoken. Josue M. Gonzalez, a professor at Arizona State University, states, “we’re the only country that believes things would be better if we only concentrated on English to the exclusion of all other languages” (Gonzalez). Gonzalez brings up valid point; the United States is the only country that believes our native language should be the only “expectable” language spoken to whereas other countries believe that learning multiple languages is more beneficial for their students and that there is not a more dominate language that needs to be learned over another.
It is argued however, that the Bilingual approach will slow productivity in the classroom because students would spend time learning a different language when the CSAP, or Colorado State Assessment Program, only tests the students on their understanding and comprehension of the English language. Because standardized tests are implemented ever year within our schools, there are limitations placed on teachers and their ability to teach another language due to the fact that the tests the prep students to pass are solely written and answered in English. So much of our school systems relay on the scores of these tests, that there is seldom time for teachers to integrate another language into their classrooms. Also the learning of another language before taking a test that is in English might impair the students’ ability and their scores might suffer because of it.
Although these two solutions both have their positives and negatives, I still do not think that either one is completely the correct way to go about bettering the education of ELL students.

Every student learns differently and has their own diverse struggles; coming up with just one simply solution would ignore those differences and possibly place struggling students at an even lower level of comprehension then they are at now. There has to be a happy medium and all students’ needs must be met before we can say the correct solution has been put into practice. I believe the correct solution is to teach every student individually and help them through their learning. Teachers must adapt to their students learning environment; giving every single student an equal chance to success, even if they struggle at first. ELL students should be provided with more one on one help, due to the stronger language barrier, and they must continue being helped until they are capable of speaking and succeeding on their tests individually. Implementing an idea along these lines would not be easy, but teaching is not an easy task and we must be up for the challenges we face so each of our students can achieve all they deserve to and more.

Works Cited

Clark, Kevin. "The Case for Structured English Immersion." Educational Leadership 66 (2009): 43.


"ENCYCLOPEDIA PROVIDES COMPREHENSIVE LOOK AT BILINGUAL EDUCATION." 28 Oct. 2008. LexisNexis. Academic. Morgan Library, Fort Collins.


Linton, April. "Spanish-English immersion in the wake of California Proposition 227: five cases." Intercultural Education 18 (2007): 111-12.


Lyster, Roy. "Negotation of Form, Recasts, and Explicit Correction in Relation to Error Types and Learner Repair in Immersion Classrooms." Language Learning 48 (1998): 2.


Slavin, Robert E., and Allen Cheung. "A Synthesis on Language of Reading Instruction for English Language Learners." Review of Educational Research 75 (2005): 250.